


Begin the World

by Alpined



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-16 22:50:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8120629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alpined/pseuds/Alpined
Summary: Carmilla is a surly business school student with a bad attitude and a complicated family. Laura is an idealistic journalism student determined to survive her first b-school course. Neither one is thrilled when they’re forced to work together on a project, but...well, you know how these things go by now, right?





	1. Chapter 1

**Silas University School of Business - Tirsch Building**

Laura and LaFontaine stood together staring at the building in silence for a few moments. They watched as a stream of co-eds in business casual entered and exited the main entrance, and LaFontaine gave a little shiver as one particularly douchey-looking group of business-school bros swaggered inside, as if they owned the building and most of America’s economy. Which, technically, their type did.

“Welp, it was nice knowing you, L,” LaFontaine said with false cheer, clapping Laura on the shoulder. “Can’t wait to see what corrupted version of you survives the hell-hole that is a b-school class.”

“Maybe it’ll be alright?” Laura said plaintively, still staring at the building. “I mean, Professor Scolp is supposed to be amazing. And it’s not a traditional business school class - it’s all about the intersection of journalism and philanthropy! Those are good things, right?”

She looked at LaFontaine for reassurance, but they just shrugged. “Maybe. I mean, there _was_ a wait-list a billion people long and you only got in by a lottery system, so that means a lot of people wanted to be in this class. But I use the term ‘people’ loosely.”

Laura sighed and shook her head, before straightening up and putting a determined look on her face. “You know what? I’m done being a negative Nancy.” LaF rolled their eyes at the expression. “This is an amazing opportunity, and I will totally show all those b-school jerk-heads that journalism majors are just as smart and competent as they are.”

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” LaFontaine said unenthusiastically, giving a half-hearted fist-pump. They checked their watch. “Okay, I gotta go to class across campus, but good luck. I’ll see you at the the Bean later?”

“Yep,” Laura said, smiling at LaF and giving a wave before she squared her shoulders and marched towards the door.

Luckily the room wasn’t too hard to find. When Laura entered, the professor hadn’t arrived yet. It was a small room seating only about 30, and was about half full with students slowly trickling in. Laura headed towards an empty seat in the middle of the room and pulled out her laptop, surreptitiously looking around. Despite her and LaFontaine’s fears, most people looked normal, if a little over-dressed for a 10AM class. There was the expected group of white guys in Lacoste joking with each other in the corner, sporting approximately identical expensive haircuts. One of them looked like every jerk-boyfriend who starts out dating the female protagonist in a teen film. He looked Laura’s way and just sort of leered at her. Without thinking, her face sank into an expression best described as “smelled a fart.” The guy looked taken-aback at her obvious disgust. Laura heard a snort of amusement and looked up to see a new student had arrived and apparently witnessed the exchange. 

She was tiny, but she held herself as if she owned the room. Her dark brown hair fell in waves just below her shoulders. Unlike everyone else in the class, who seemed like they could easily walk out of class and into a job interview, this girl wore skinny black jeans, a black t-shirt, and a leather vest. She was also very, very attractive. Like, cheekbones-could-cut-through-glass, eyebrows-sculpted by God, want-to-get-lost-in-her-eyes attractive. Not that Laura was noticing or anything.

She also looked familiar, and with a start Laura realized it was Carmilla Karnstein. Carmilla Karnstein, whose mother was the CEO of Digitas and the architect of roughly half of the innovations in smartphone technology since the early aughts. Lilita Karnstein had more money than God. She also spent her money like a benevolent god, investing in more global and domestic charities than Laura could name. The Karnstein Foundation was one of the top-ten U.S.-based philanthropic organizations. Laura knew Carmilla was a student at Silas, but it hadn’t even crossed her mind that they would have class together. Carmilla was almost a mythical figure to Laura’s friends, and not just because she was a senior and they were freshmen. They knew her as the unapproachable, bad-tempered rich-girl constantly getting in fights with paparazzi. To her credit, that might be in part because the paparazzi had a tendency to post invasive pictures of Carmilla out drinking or having a one-night stand, or both. The day after these incidents Carmilla would inevitably have her picture posted in a more respectable publication, making some sort of apology for her behavior, her mother’s presence felt if not seen.

And here she was, in Laura’s class, giving the guys in the corner a dirty look before rolling her eyes and slumping into a chair on the other side of the room from Laura. Carmilla must have noticed Laura staring at her, because she lifted her head and met Laura’s gaze directly. She lifted an eyebrow and Laura suddenly found herself blushing, tearing her gaze away from the other girl’s so she could stare at the front of the room, just as the professor entered.

“Good morning class,” the professor said, setting down his briefcase. “I am Professor Scolp, and this is Communication for Nonprofits. You should know this already from the title, but this course is cross-listed with both the Journalism and Business schools. The goal of this course is to teach you how to integrate various forms of marketing and media to advance philanthropic organizations and projects. For some of you in the business school, our emphasis on charitable work may be disorienting. For you idealistic types in the J-school, our emphasis on manipulating human emotions to get money out of people may make you uncomfortable. My ultimate goal is for everyone to be at least a little uncomfortable and disoriented. That’s just how I roll.” This speech got a laugh out of most of the room, including Laura. She was beginning to think she might actually enjoy this class.

Professor Scolp had them introduce themselves and what department they were in. The class was about 75% b-school, 25% j-school. When Carmilla introduced herself in a bored voice, the murmurs were audible, but Professor Scolp ignored them and moved on to the next person. When Laura introduced herself, she thought she felt Carmilla’s eyes on her, but wasn’t sure. After introductions, Scolp launched into a lecture about the importance of media and social issues, and Laura was too busy taking notes to think of anything else.

When there were fifteen minutes left in the class, Dr. Scolp stopped his lecture. “Alright. A core component of this class is application of learning. You will each spend the entire semester designing a strategic marketing plan around a philanthropic, charitable, or nonprofit endeavor of your choosing. You will have weekly assignments related to this project that align with whatever we are learning in class that week. This is a business school class, so you must learn to work well with others. Therefore, this is a group project. I will be assigning you partners based on your last names, and there will be no tradesies unless you are literally, physically allergic to the other person.” That solicited some laughs, but like everyone else, Laura was looking around and dreading who she might be partnered with. She said a desperate, silent prayer that she not be paired up with the gross guy in the corner.

It was only as Scolp began reading pairs of names that Laura realized that Hollis and Karnstein were pretty close to each other. There was no way they’d get paired up together, though, right? That seemed like something that would happen to...someone who wasn’t Laura. But Scolp hit the F’s, then the G’s, and then he read, “Laura Hollis and Carmilla Karnstein, you’re a pair.” Carmilla looked around, waiting for Hollis to identify herself. Laura raised a hand tentatively and gave Carmilla a weak smile. Carmilla just nodded, her expression unreadable, and Laura tried to contain her panic as she looked down at the notes on her desk. Scolp finished reading off the pairs, and concluded with, “Alright, take the last five minutes to meet with your partner and start planning out your first assignment.”

Laura drew in a deep breath, preparing herself, and got out of her seat to head towards Carmilla. Carmilla was still sprawled back in her chair, looking bored. She gave Laura a shameless once-over, taking in her appearance from head to toe. Then she just kind of smirked at her, which made Laura both offended and self-conscious at the same time, and she couldn’t entirely say why. She cleared her throat as she sat down.

“Hi,” she said brightly, deciding to put her reservations on hold for the moment. “I’m Laura Hollis.”

“Yeah, I know,” Carmilla drawled. “The Prof said your name, remember?”

“Right, right,” Laura said, laughing nervously. “And you’re Carmilla Karnstein, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Carmilla said, before lapsing into silence. Laura gave a little sigh, already feeling like she was banging her head into a wall.

“Okay, well, we should probably set up a time to meet and discuss the first assignment. I’ve got classes for most of the next couple of days, but are you free this Thursday at 7?”

Carmilla narrowed her eyes at Laura before taking out her phone and entering the passcode. Laura was about to be offended, thinking Carmilla was blatantly ignoring her, when she realized Carmilla was just checking her schedule.

“Thursday at 7 looks fine,” Carmilla said, slipping her phone back into her pocket. “Where do you want to meet?”

“Do you know where the Bean is - the coffee place on Johnson?”

“Yeah, sure, that’s fine with me.” Carmilla was already gathering her notebook and laptop and slipping them into her bag. She stood up and slung her backpack across her right shoulder.

“Okay, then,” Laura said, still trying for some semblance of cheer. “See you Thursday.”

“See you Thursday, cutie,” Carmilla said, and then she honest-to-god winked at Laura. Then she turned and strode out of the room. Laura was left staring at the door, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.

*********

“And then she _winked_ at you?” LaFontaine said as they put on their apron. They had just arrived at the Bean and were preparing for the 5:00 rush. Laura had already been there for four hours, and her feet were aching.

“Yeah, it was crazy!” Laura said, shaking her head. “She was being a total b-word the whole time - it was like talking to a really petulant wall - and then she winked at me and called me cutie. She’s off her rocker.”

“Probably,” LaF agreed. “But she’s apparently a total womanizer - maybe she was hitting on you.”

“Hitting on me?” Laura said incredulously. “Her technique needs some work, then. No, I think she was just messing with me. Have I mentioned how much I’m looking forward to partnering with an entitled rich girl who will probably tank my GPA, leading me to drop out of college and live in a box on some shady street corner?”

“You won’t live in a box,” LaF told her reassuringly. “You can crash with me and Perry for at least a week, if you have to.”

“How generous of you,” Laura said, rolling her eyes and grinning. “Okay, I’m gonna get in the last few hours of my shift before the partner from hell rolls up.”

The next couple hours were a blur as the Bean got slammed, as it usually did as both work and local classes let out. One moment Laura was turning around serving a particularly rude customer, smiling the whole time because she _really_ needed this job, and the next moment she turned around and Carmilla was standing right there, all ripped black jeans and flannel. 

“Oh,” Laura said stupidly. “Is it already 7:00?”

“Sure is, cupcake,” Carmilla said with a smirk. “I’ll be over there if you actually want to work on this project instead of serving coffee to caffeine junkies.” Carmilla sauntered over to an empty table and slung her bag down.

Laura sighed and went behind the bar to take off her apron.

“Is that her?” LaF stage-whispered at her as they finished making a hot chocolate, wordlessly sliding it over to Laura. “She looks bigger in the pictures.”

“Yep,” Laura said, grabbing her bag from behind the counter and picking up the hot cocoa with her other hand. “Wish me luck.”

Laura made her way to where Carmilla was and sat down, feeling the relief of being off of her feet.

“So you work here?” Carmilla said.

Laura was tempted to throw Carmilla’s earlier “obviously” back in her face, but she just nodded. “Yep. I have for a while now. Hope this place is convenient for you - it’s where I end up doing a lot of work.”

Carmilla shrugged. “It’s fine. My apartment’s not far from here.”

“Great,” Laura said, smiling. She reached in her bag and pulled out their first assignment. “Okay, so the first thing we have to do is pick a ‘client’ and do a short write-up of their mission, history, budget - all that stuff. Have you given it any thought?”

“Not really,” Carmilla said, sounding bored. Laura felt her anger rising, but she tamped it down and gave Carmilla a tight smile.

“Okay, well, what about the Karnstein Foundation?” Laura said, taking a sip of her hot chocolate. “Clearly you have a personal connection.”

“Fuck no,” Carmilla almost spat, and Laura was taken aback at the disdain in her voice. “They have millions of dollars going to marketing already. Why should we give them free labor?”

“Look,” Laura said, setting her cup down and gritting her teeth. She was trying to keep her voice calm, but she could tell there was anger underneath it. “I know this might be a throwaway class for you since you obviously don’t need that much experience in business, but it means something to me. Some of us have to get good grades - we can’t all be -” she broke off, and Carmilla glared at her.

“Can’t all be what?” Carmilla said, almost sneering. “You going to make a dig at me being a spoiled rich kid?”

“No!” Laura said, feeling an instant flood of remorse. She sighed, bringing her hand up to rub the bridge of her nose. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just...look, I’m on scholarship, okay? I’m not working this job just for fun. I have to maintain a certain GPA to keep my scholarship, and two of my core classes are kicking my butt this semester, and I’ve heard Stolp is a pretty strict grader. So I just...this is important, okay?”

During Laura’s ramble, Carmilla’s expression had softened, and she looked almost guilty. She nodded once Laura finished.

“Okay,” she said quietly, surprising Laura. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get defensive. And I do take this seriously. I just - get a little touchy sometimes when people make insinuations about me and my family.”

Laura nodded, before smiling and Carmilla. “Okay, well that’s out of the way then. So back to the project - is there something local we could support? Something that maybe does need the free marketing help?”

Carmilla bit at her lip, thinking. Laura for some reason couldn’t help looking at Carmilla’s lips and the way her teeth tugged at the skin. Then she realized what she was doing and snapped her eyes back up to Carmilla’s.

“Well,” Carmilla said slowly, “have you heard of Second Street Haven?”

“They do something with foster kids, right?”

“Yeah,” Carmilla said, carefully avoiding Laura’s gaze. “They coordinate court-appointed advocates for kids in the system - mostly volunteers. They do really good work, but they don’t have much of a budget for things like marketing.”

Laura nodded slowly. “Yeah, I’ve heard of them. I don’t know a lot about them, but they seem like a really cool organization. I would be into having them be our client. If we start to feel like this project is actually going well, we could even approach them and start working with them directly.” Laura was watching Carmilla carefully, noting the way she was studiously examining the specials board instead of looking at Laura. She vaguely remembered that Carmilla was adopted, as was her older sister Matzka - more proof of Lilita Karnstein’s limitless virtue. She imagined foster kids must be a personal issue for Carmilla, and she felt an unexpected rush of warmth towards Carmilla.

Carmilla seemed to realize she was acting strange (for her), because she shook her head almost angrily and turned back to Laura. “Fine, then we’ll do Second Street Haven. You want to write up their history, mission, and stakeholders and I’ll take the rest of the items?” Carmilla’s voice was calm, and Laura began to doubt whether she’d even witnessed a moment of weakness or just imagined it.

“Sounds good,” Laura said, smiling at Carmilla. She was about to ask Carmilla when she next wanted to meet when Carmilla abruptly stood up, picking up her bag and shoving her wallet inside.

“Okay, we can probably just handle the rest of this assignment by email.” She scribbled her email address onto her notepad, then ripped it out and slid it towards Laura. “I’ll see you on Tuesday?”

“Sure,” Laura said, trying to repress a sigh as she folded the paper and slipped it into her bag. It was too much to ask that Carmilla be suddenly nice to her, but at least she seemed to be taking the assignment seriously now.

“Oh, and cupcake?” Carmilla said, looking down at Laura. “You’ve got hot cocoa on your lips.” Before Laura could react, Carmilla reached out and brushed her thumb just under Laura’s lower lip. Then she smirked at Laura’s stunned face, turned, and left the shop.

For the second time in three days, Laura was left staring speechlessly after Carmilla Karnstein.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up there are some darker themes later on - I'll give a warning if a chapter gets heavy.


	2. Chapter 2

_What the hell are you doing?_ Carmilla said to herself when she left the Bean, shaking her head in disgust. She really did not need to be flirting with some J-school frosh. She had meant to keep her head down, do what she needed to get a solid grade, and barrel through this group project, like she did with every other group project she’d been forced into for the past three years. She had walked in the Bean determined to be at her sullen best, only to witness Laura behaving like a whirlwind of cheer, taking orders and spinning through the coffee shop with a smile for every customer. She was even friendly to the jerk customer who bitched about his milk being 2% instead of skim, although she rolled her eyes and slipped into a scowl as soon as the customer couldn’t see her face. This was the same flash of attitude Carmilla had witnessed in class the other day when Laura had flagrantly rejected one of the douche-bros in their class. It was this reaction that had made Carmilla give Laura a second look and consider that perhaps she wasn’t the tightly-wound do-gooder her prim button-up seemed to suggest.

And then Laura had gone off on that rant, her eyes bright and passionate, her whole tiny body so fucking _earnest_ , and the whole time she had that little smudge of chocolate at the corner of her mouth. Carmilla just couldn’t resist. And usually she would flirt with any cute girl she saw, but project partners were off limits. She had made that rule for herself after she fucked her group partner in first year, and then had to deal with a month of histrionics and nearly failing the project. So Laura was definitely out-of-bounds.

Still, she had to give Laura credit for calling Carmilla out on her BS. Carmilla prided herself on being relatively aware of what a privileged little shit she was, but apparently she hadn’t been vigilant enough. Laura couldn’t know that Carmilla actually took her studies pretty seriously. Carmilla’s attitude must have convinced Laura she didn’t care (which was, just maybe, a reasonable assumption), and she had every right to be angry. And so now Carmilla was feeling all sorts of conflicted feelings, which were her least favorite type of feelings (with the exception of all other type of feelings).

She was saved from her own thoughts by her phone buzzing. She looked down to see a text from Kirsch.

 **Kirsch:** Yo C-dawg, I’m at the Jester. Join me for a drink?

 **Carmilla:** Depends. Are you alone?

 **Kirsch:** Yeah, don’t worry, I didn’t invite any Zetas. I wouldn’t want you to tear their nuts off or anything.

Carmilla smirked. Kirsch was pretty much the only b-school student she could stand. Actually, he was one of the only _people_ she could stand. They had met during her first year in a shared class, and at first she had assumed he’d be just like the rest of them. But then they had ended up running into each other at a bar during the Major League playoffs. Kirsch had noticed that they were literally the only two rooting for the Mets and had bought her a beer out of sympathy. Once it became clear he wasn’t hitting on her, Carmilla loosened up and actually enjoyed herself. They’d been hanging out ever since, but that didn’t mean she would tolerate the guys in his frat. She could only stand a half hour of their company before Kirsch would have to physically restrain her from verbally eviscerating them. So they mostly hung out just the two of them.

 **Carmilla:** Good. I’m nearby, be there in a few.

 **Kirsch:** Rad!

Carmilla walked the few blocks to the Jester, smiling a little when she saw its familiar sign. It was a total dive bar, and also her favorite bar in the city. Once her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, she spotted Kirsch and headed his way.

“Hey!” Kirsch said, lighting up. He held up his hand and she rolled her eyes, but still gave him a high-five.

“I bought a pitcher already,” Kirsch said, nodding towards the pitcher on the table. 

“Nice,” Carmilla said with a nod, pouring herself a glass.

“What were you up to?”

“Partner project for that philanthropy class,” Carmilla said, grimacing. “I got paired with this baby journalism student for the rest of the semester.”

“Is she at least hot?” Kirsch asked, raising an eyebrow. Carmilla glared at him, but then shrugged.

“She is cute, actually,” Carmilla said, thinking about the way Laura had tucked her hair behind her ears, and the serious expression on her face whenever they were talking about their project. “Really cute. But in an idealistic, wounded-puppy kind of way. I hope I don’t break her.”

“Eh, she’ll be fine,” Kirsch said, waving off her concerns. “You’re all bark, no bite.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Carmilla asked, her expression instantly becoming menacing. Kirsch gulped.

“Okay, maybe not all bark. But, like, you’re pretty good at holding it back when your grade depends on it, if I remember.”

Carmilla shrugged. “I guess. Anyway, it’s just one project. We’ll be fine. What did you do today?”

Kirsch launched into a rambling story about some redhead he met, and how he jammed his foot in his mouth approximately twenty times before giving up. The story had Carmilla laughing despite her best efforts. He was just such an idiot. 

A couple hours and several drinks later, Carmilla and Kirsch left the bar. She gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder and then headed in the direction of her apartment, stumbling only a little.

Once she let herself in, she flopped down on her bed and opened up her computer. She immediately noticed that she had an email from Laura, and clicked it open.

_Hi, this is Laura (obviously). Just wanted to you to have my email address too. Sorry if I was weird today. -Laura_

Carmilla smiled without out even thinking about it, and then let out a puff of laughter before closing her computer and putting it on the side table. She fell asleep without even changing out of her clothes.

****

Carmilla didn’t get around to her part of the assignment until a day later. She dug around on Haven’s website and read through several of their recent reports, beginning to pull together the components of the write-up. She very consciously compartmentalized whenever Haven inserted personal stories of the children they’d helped. She was extremely good at treating things like that in a detached manner - she’d had a lot of practice. After she’d finished putting everything together and proofread it a couple of times, she shot it to Laura’s email address with a brusque,

_Here’s my part. -C_

Almost instantly, she saw a message pop up from Laura on gchat. She frowned - she must not have put herself on invisible. It’s not like she ever gchatted with anyone, except occasionally Kirsch and even more occasionally Mattie.

 **Laura:** Hi!

 **Carmilla:** Hey.

 **Laura:** So I just saw your draft. I’m wrapping mine up. Give me a couple minutes and I’ll send it your way?

 **Carmilla:** Yeah, that’s fine.

Carmilla read through some of her work for another class while she waited, and about fifteen minutes later got an email from Laura. Before she could open it, Laura gchatted her again.

 **Laura:** Okay, so don’t be offended that I’m even asking this, but would you mind if I made some edits to your piece? They’re mostly minor, I promise.

 **Carmilla:** Afraid I’m going to bite your head off?

 **Laura:** Kind of?

Carmilla laughed.

 **Carmilla:** It’s fine, cutie. I’m a big girl - I can take criticism. Unless it’s idiotic criticism, which it usually is.

 **Laura:** I’ll do my best. And maybe you could give me feedback on my part?

 **Carmilla:** Sure. Looking at it now.

Carmilla downloaded Laura’s half and read through it. It was actually pretty good. She could already tell Laura had a nice writing style, even for something as basic as an organization write-up. But Laura did have a tendency to wax poetic and insert purple prose when it wasn’t needed. And she wasn’t the best at incorporating numbers and stats into her work, which Carmilla knew was important for anything related to businesses or nonprofits. Carmilla might be an apathetic ass sometimes, but she really did pay attention in school. Her mother had made it very clear the kind of wrath she would face if she didn’t perform well at school. Plus, Carmilla couldn’t stand the thought of any of the jackholes in her classes doing better than her. Her professors always seemed mildly shocked whenever she made A’s on her assignments, and often chalked it up to the influence of her mother. Which, in a way, it was.

Carmilla track-changed her edits to Laura’s paper, read it through one more time, and sent it back. 

_It’s good. Just some suggestions. -C_

A couple minutes later she received Laura’s track-changed copy. She scowled when she first saw it, seeing that there were quite a few changes. But as she read through the edits, she realized that most of them were pretty solid. They humanized her section in a way Carmilla had never been good at, and added some pathos that Carmilla knew was important for wringing money out of bleeding-hearts. She accepted most but not all of the changes.

 **Carmilla:** Don’t worry, won’t bite your head off. I accepted most of your changes.

 **Laura:** Yours too! You made my part waaay better.

 **Carmilla:** Send your half to me and I’ll put it together - you probably don’t know business school formatting yet.

 **Laura:** Awesome, thanks!

 **Carmilla:** Sure thing, cupcake.

 **Laura:** I’m actually pretty excited about this project.

 **Carmilla:** You know I’m not going to say I’m excited too, right?

 **Laura:** Duh, I know. See you Tuesday?

 **Carmilla:** See you Tuesday.

When Carmilla got to class, she fully intended to sit down in her seat on the far side of the room, putting distance between herself and everyone else. But then Laura had caught sight of her and her face had _lit up_ with a smile. Somehow Carmilla found herself heading Laura’s way and sitting in the seat next to her. And with the way Laura was beaming at her, she couldn’t even say she regretted it.


	3. Chapter 3

Laura was careful not to make a big deal about it when Carmilla started sitting with her during class, but she couldn’t deny it made her feel like she had won some kind of victory. At first Carmilla didn’t say much, but after that first class she started muttering snide comments to Laura under her breath, usually when one of the dude-bros asked a stupid question. Her comments always took Laura by surprise, forcing her to clench her entire body to keep from laughing out loud in class and drawing attention to herself. Carmilla seemed to know the impact she had, because she always smirked right afterwards, as if proud of herself for almost making Laura break.

A week after their first assignment, they received their grade back at the end of class.

_A. Nicely done. Good project idea._

The paper had some markups from Professor Scolp - some suggested edits and questions for them to explore further - but Laura couldn’t stop looking at that A.

“Oh my god,” she said, looking up at Carmilla excitedly, waving the paper like it was a commendation from the President. “I can’t believe we got an A.”

“Of course we got an A,” Carmilla said, rolling her eyes as if Laura was showing her a parking ticket. “It was a good write-up. It was just one assignment.”

“Right, totally, totes,” Laura said, waving her hand dismissively like she imagined someone who didn’t care would. “Just one assignment. Like, yeah, it’s my first A in a business school class, a class I was pretty much sure I was going to fail, but, like, whatever, no biggie.” She gave what she meant to be a casual shrug, but it came off as more of a spasm.

“Oh my god, you are such nerd, frosh,” Carmilla said, but Laura could see she was smiling as she shook her head.

They had their second partner assignment assigned the third week of class. To Laura’s surprise, Carmilla showed up at the Bean an hour before they were scheduled to meet. 

“Sorry, did I get the time wrong?” she said when she saw Carmilla sitting at a corner table, reading a book and taking notes. 

“No, we’re still on for 7:00,” Carmilla said, leaning back and eyeing Laura in that way of hers that always made Laura strangely self-conscious. “I just have some work for another class and thought I’d study here before we meet. That a problem?”

“No, of course not,” Laura rushed to say. “Um, can I get you anything?”

“No thanks, cutie,” Carmilla said, winking at Laura before she seemed to reconsider. “I mean, I wouldn’t say no to a cookie.”

Laura nodded silently and went back to where LaF was staring at both of them, not particularly subtly.

“What are you doing?” they whispered at Laura when they saw her grab a chocolate chip cookie out of the counter.

“I’m bringing her a cookie,” Laura said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and took it to Carmila before LaF could ask more questions.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Carmilla said when Laura handed it to her, giving her an almost genuine smile. “Put it on my tab.”

“It’s on me,” Laura said spontaneously, not entirely sure why she did. Then she turned around and went to take an order before Carmilla could react. 

Once Laura’s shift was over, she made her way back to Carmilla. Carmilla was seemingly deeply engrossed in her book, her brow slightly furrowed, her teeth lightly biting on the cap of her pen. She was so focused she actually started when Laura sat across from her.

“Sorry,” Laura apologized. “Didn’t mean to surprise you.”

“It’s fine,” Carmilla said, frowning down at the book in her hand. “I just can’t get enough of neoliberalism, you know?” She waved her copy of _Capitalism and Freedom_ at Laura before tossing it on the table with a disgusted look. “I really fucking hate business school.”

“Really?” Laura asked dryly. “I never would have guessed.” Carmilla snorted in amusement, but Laura found herself frowning. “Why do you do it, then, if you hate it so much?”

“Why do you think?” Carmilla said, looking at Laura like she had asked her why she breathed. “You think the daughter of the CEO of Digitas is allowed to go to, like, _art school_ or something?”

“Oh,” Laura said, deflated. “I guess that makes sense? I mean, it doesn’t really seem fair, though. Is your mom expecting you to take over the company or the foundation?”

“Hell no,” Carmilla said with a humorless laugh. “I’m way too much of a fuck-up to trust with that. No, all the real power will go to my older sister Mattie, who is eminently qualified.” Despite her words, Carmilla didn’t seem bitter about the fact that her sister would be taking over. She shrugged. “I’ll be given some inconsequential branch of one of our sub-projects - maybe accounting, or marketing for whatever widget our tech geeks come up with next. Mother needs me somewhere respectable, but not somewhere where I can do much damage.”

“Oh,” Laura said quietly, not really sure what to say. She hadn’t expected Carmilla to share that much about herself, even if it was wrapped up in her signature snark. Carmilla seemed to realize she had revealed more than she intended, because her expression changed into something less disheartened and more disgusted.

“You can tell me to shut the fuck up, you know,” she said, giving a bitter laugh. “There’s nothing more reprehensible that a rich white girl complaining about how her mommy is going to hand her a high-paying position on a golden platter. It’s got to be especially irritating to hear for someone who’s - “ she broke off, seeming to search for the right way to phrase it.

“Poor?” Laura said with amusement.

“I was going to say lower-middle-class,” Carmilla said sardonically, her lips pulling up into a wry smile. “I didn’t want to make assumptions.”

Laura shrugged. “We’re doing fine, really. My dad’s been a manager at a grocery store for years and makes a decent wage, and I’m an only kid, so that helps. But he’s still a single dad putting his kid through college, so…” she trailed off.

“So that scholarship you mentioned doesn’t cover everything?”

“No,” Laura said, shaking her head. “I mean, it takes care of most of my tuition, but I still have living expenses and all that. This job helps, and my dad fills in the gaps when he can.” She smiled ruefully. “I may not have the same issues with parental expectations that you do, but I do feel kind of crappy that I’m in a major that’s practically doomed to be non-lucrative.”

“Can’t argue with you there,” Carmilla said, then let out a snort of amusement when Laura’s face scrunched up in indignation. “What? We all know print journalism has been dying a slow and public death for the past decade. You want me to sugar-coat it?”

“No,” Laura grumped, still frowning. Then she sighed. “Yeah, well, I’m still holding out hope that I can be one of the handful who actually make it work. This business class is the only practical decision I’ve made.”

“Speaking of which,” Carmilla said, lifting an eyebrow. “You want to look at next week’s assignment?”

They spent about an hour and a half working, LaF occasionally swinging by to refill Carmilla’s coffee and Laura’s hot chocolate. Laura had introduced the two of them the first time LaFontaine came over, and they’d given each other the classic chin-raise and, “Hey.” As soon as LaFontaine got back to the counter, Laura had leaned forward and said,

“Just in case you end up coming in her and interacting with LaFontaine, I just wanted to give you the heads up that they go by they/them pronouns.”

“Alright,” Carmilla said, as if Laura was informing her that the sky was blue, and then turned back to the notes she was taking. Laura nodded, pleased that she apparently didn’t need to explain more.

After that day, Carmilla became a quasi-regular at the Bean. She kept mostly to herself, working intently on her laptop or readings, or whatever her classes required. Occasionally she interrupted her studies to glare at other customers when they got too close to her, made too much noise, or generally existed in a way she didn’t approve of. She reserved the bulk of her snide comments for the handful of b-school bros who would occasionally wander into the Bean, several of whom were in her and Laura’s class.

Laura felt a little ashamed she had assumed Carmilla was a slacker when they first met - clearly she was a pretty serious student, she just liked everyone to think she didn’t give a crap. Laura generally gave her her space, but always made sure to check in on her when it looked like she needed a refill. She was usually rewarded with small smile and a “Thanks, cupcake.” 

It didn’t take long before LaFontaine and her manager Danny started teasing her for what they claimed was her crush on Carmilla. Laura told them they were being ridiculous - she was just being nice to a class partner, which is how she would behave towards anyone. That didn’t really explain why she snuck free cookies to Carmilla whenever she came in the Bean in a particularly surly mood, but she opted not to examine her feelings further.

After five weeks of class, Scolp told them they would need to present their draft strategic plan in front of the whole class. Carmilla made a face in class when he announced that.

“Why am I not surprised you’re not a fan of public presentations?” Laura murmured to her, grinning.

“Are you?” Carmilla asked rhetorically. “Is anyone?”

“Actually, I’m horrible at presentations,” Laura said brightly. “I get really flustered, and tend to babble everything I’m thinking, and generally look like a total idiot.”

“Yay, me,” Carmilla said dryly, but Laura thought she caught a hint of amusement in her voice. 

Laura frowned. “I guess we’ll have to work in the library instead of the Bean - we’ll need a printer for the handouts.”

Carmilla shrugged. “Let’s just work at my place. I don’t want to have to keep my voice down at the library. You want to work on it Saturday afternoon?”

“Sure!” Laura said. “Text me your address.” She clapped her hands together. “I can’t wait to see what kind of lair Carmilla Karnstein lives in.”

“Shut up, frosh,” Carmilla said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t make me regret treating you like a human being.”

Laura just smiled to herself, leaning back and listening to Scolp wrap up that week’s class.

*******  
Laura was not surprised to find that Carmilla lived in one of the bougier apartment buildings she’d seen near campus - it even had a front-desk man who eyed her a little suspiciously when she insisted she was meeting with one of the tenants.

When she knocked on Carmilla’s door, she felt a flutter of nerves she couldn’t entirely explain. She had to admit it was a little crazy that she was about to spend the day in the apartment of Carmilla Karnstein, who had been practically a regular feature on TMZ for a time. But for some reason Laura didn’t think that was why she was so nervous.

Carmilla opened the door on the fourth knock. “Okay, okay, I’m here,” she said in exasperation. Her hair was slightly damp, and Laura guessed that she had just showered. She wore skinny jeans (natch) but a loose, pale cream shirt instead of her usual black. She wasn’t wearing shoes, which Laura for some reason found endearing.

“I barely even knocked,” Laura said indignantly, putting her hands on her hips and looking at Carmilla expectantly. “You going to let me in?”

Carmilla rolled her eyes, but she stepped aside and gestured towards the interior.

Laura walked inside, her eyes immediately taking in the decor. The first thing she noticed was it was cozier than she anticipated. She had half expected the walls to be black, and all the furniture to have hard, uncomfortable edges. But the living room area was nice, with a comfy looking navy couch, some tasteful wood furniture, and artwork on nearly every surface. It was also _nice_ \- as in, Laura couldn’t imagine decorating, much less renting an apartment this swanky. The second thing she noticed were the books. One entire side of the room was covered in bookshelves, and Laura itched to run her fingers over their spines to see what they were.

“Your apartment is, like, _really_ nice,” Laura said, turning towards Carmilla. Carmilla was looking at her with an expression Laura would almost call apprehension.

“It better be,” Carmilla said, her expression smoothing into something more sardonic. “I pay enough for it.”

“I brought snacks!” Laura said, holding up the shopping bag in her right arm.

“What kind of snacks?” Carmilla asked, eyeing the bag suspiciously.

“Um,” Laura said, ruffling around in the bag with her free hand. “Gummy bears, chocolate chip cookies, sour patch kids -”

“Jesus Christ, poptart, how do you have any teeth left?”

“I like sugar,” Laura said defensively.

“Of course you do,” Carmilla said, shaking her head in exasperation. “C’mon - come put your bag-o-tooth-rot in the kitchen. You want a drink?”

After they got settled, they dove into the project, discussing how to split up the powerpoint and their respective parts of the presentation. 

“Okay,” Laura said after they’d laid out their gameplan, “I think for the intro we should highlight a couple of stories of kids who have been helped by Haven. They’ve got a lot of testimonials on their website we can pull from.”

“Sure,” Carmilla said, suddenly looking uncomfortable, not quite meeting Laura’s eyes. “But you should do that part - I’m not really the sentimental type, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Laura nodded, carefully watching Carmilla. In the last few weeks working with her, it had been impossible to ignore the way she would sometimes freeze up whenever they moved away from the more pragmatic components of their project and into the more personal parts - the stories of kids in the system, and the kinds of challenges they faced. Laura usually let these moments slide, respecting Carmilla’s desire not to dwell on them. But now she decided to push, just a little.

“Okay, so feel totally 100% free to tell me to mind my own freaking business, but I was just wondering, since you did pick this client - did you or your sister ever get services from an organization like this?”

It was as if Laura had fired a gun - Carmilla’s face instantly transformed into something guarded and scared at the same time, and suddenly Laura was afraid she had made a huge mistake.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out, panicked. “I shouldn’t have asked that. That was way too personal. You don’t have to tell me anything, in fact just pretend I didn’t say anything. I really shouldn’t have asked. I’ll just go back to working on this section and act like I didn’t just act like an asshole and - “

“It’s okay,” Carmilla said, lifting her hands as if to physically stop Laura’s incoherent ramblings. “Slow your roll, cupcake.” She didn’t exactly look happy, but that scary blank look was no longer on her face. She sighed, running her hand through her hair, which had finally dried. “Mattie definitely didn’t. Mattie’s parents died in a car wreck when she was sixteen. Her parents were family friends of my mother’s, so mother simply insisted that she take custody. Mattie didn’t have a lot of close relatives, and none of them objected.”

“How old were you when Mattie was adopted?” Laura asked, curious. 

“Twelve,” Carmilla said, her lips curling into a small smile. “You would think Matzka would want nothing to do with a petulant pre-teen, but we got along really well. She was practically an adult, even then - I feel like she and mother have always been more like colleagues than mother and daughter. But she could be fun, and we had good times together.” Carmilla’s expression went blank again, and she shrugged. “But we really only had two years under the same roof before she turned 18 and went to college. We still talk a lot, and I see her on holidays or when she’s traveling here for business.”

“I’m sorry you don’t get to see her more,” Laura said, meaning it. “I know it’s hard not having family around when you need them.” She felt her own pang of pain when she said this, thinking about her mother, but she didn’t bring it up. 

Carmilla nodded, and then cleared her throat self-consciously. “And as for your question, yes, I did have experience with court-appointed advocates. And they helped me, and this issue is important to me. And that’s really all I want to say about it, okay?”

“Totally okay,” Laura said, reaching over to squeeze Carmilla’s hand. She half expected Carmilla to pull away, but she didn’t. Laura drew a shaky breath. She wanted to know more - she wanted to be someone Carmilla could confide in. But she knew that wasn’t who Carmilla was, and they weren’t there yet as people. “Okay, that was unexpectedly heavy. I’m going to go refill on sour patch kids - you want some?”

“Yes, but we’re eating a vegetable at some point today, okay?”

Laura pouted. “Spoilsport.”

****

After they’d been working for a couple hours, Laura’s stomach gave a very audible growl.

“Someone’s discovering that gummy bears don’t constitute a full meal, huh?” Carmilla said, smirking at Laura. Laura blushed but didn’t have an appropriate comeback. “I need a break - let’s order food and stop working for a while. Pizza or Chinese?”

They settled on Chinese food and Carmilla placed the order, making sure to ask for an extra side of broccoli, giving Laura the finger when she stuck her tongue out at her. Then Carmilla slumped onto her couch and turned on the tv. Laura followed and sat at the other side of the couch, suddenly hit again by how weird this was. She was so used to Carmilla by now that she sometimes forgot that Carmilla was basically Bill Gates’ kid, but angrier and gayer. 

Carmilla was playing idly with the remote, and she looked like she wanted to say something.

“What?” Laura said, giving her an expectant look. “Why are you being weird all of the sudden?”

Carmilla scowled at her, but then she looked down as if embarrassed. “Well, I was wondering if you would mind if we...put the Mets game on.”

“The Mets?” Laura said blankly. “Like, the baseball team?” Carmilla nodded, and Laura gave herself props for even knowing that the Mets were a baseball team. “Yeah, sure, whatever,” Laura said, shrugging. “I mean, I don’t really follow baseball. Or football. Or sports. But it’s your apartment. Is it a big game or something?”

“Not really. There are still a lot of games before the playoffs. But they’re playing the Phillies, who are kind of their rivals. And I just checked my phone and apparently the game is pretty close, and there are only three innings left.”

“I understood most of those words,” Laura said confidently. Carmilla rolled her eyes and huffed out a laugh, before turning to the right channel. They watched in silence for a few minutes, but since Laura had no fucking clue what was going on, she got bored.

“How’d you get into baseball?” she finally asked. “No offense, but organized male sports don’t really seem like your thing.”

“I know,” Carmilla said wryly. “I’m as surprised as anyone. But I had this driver when I was young who was a huge Mets fan. He would listen to the games on the radio whenever my mother would leave me in the car with him while she was at a meeting. I got sucked into it then and haven’t been able to claw my way out. It’s too bad the Mets suck, though.”

“The Mets suck?” Laura asked, confused. She was also still adjusting to the sad image of a young Carmilla sitting for hours in the car her mom left her in, with no one to talk to but the driver. 

Carmilla shrugged. “I mean, not consistently. But they let me down all the time.”

“That’s...too bad,” Laura said helplessly. Carmilla glanced over at her, her lip curling up in amusement.

“You really know nothing about baseball, do you?”

“I know you hit the ball with the bat, and then you run around the bases,” Laura said cheerfully. “And you get three strikes, and you’re either safe or you’re out. And there’s an umpire and a pitcher and a batter and those guys in the outfield. And I am officially maxxed out on my baseball knowledge.”

Carmilla snorted. “Most of that was correct. Okay, let me explain it to you.”

Carmilla launched into a lengthy diatribe about the origins of baseball, the history of the Mets, the significance of the batting order, and a whole lot of other stuff that Laura tried halfheartedly to follow. Carmilla had an almost clinical, scientific approach the sport, which somehow didn’t surprise Laura. Even though she didn’t absorb most of what Carmilla said, Laura found it beyond endearing that Carmilla was so passionate about something so...apple pie...as baseball, and that she was taking the time to explain it to Laura. 

In gruesome, painstaking detail. 

When the Chinese food finally arrived, Laura sprang up and said,“Oh thank god.” Carmilla glared at her, and Laura shrugged helplessly.

“Sorry.” Then she grinned impishly. “I’ll pay attention to baseball if you watch all seven Harry Potter movies and let me explain to how inferior they are to the books.”

“Never,” Carmilla said, her expression deadly serious. “That will _never_ happen.”

Laura pouted briefly, but then turned to answer the door.

They ate while they watched the rest of the game, Laura occasionally asking Carmilla questions about why certain things were happening. Over time, she started asking more and more ridiculous questions. At one point she asked,

“So, like, are the Mets better or worse than the New York Giants?”

Carmilla’s head whipped around to look at her, her expression incredulous. “Are you _serious_?”

Her face was such a mixture of indignation and horror that Laura burst into giggles. Carmilla scowled at her.

“You’re ridiculous,” Carmilla muttered, turning back to watch the game. “Can’t even tell the difference between a baseball and football team. Reinforcing every stereotype about women and sports. Were you raised by wolves?”

Laura just kept laughing.

Luckily, the game ended soon after that, and then Laura had to deal with five minutes of Carmilla ranting about how they never should have started Verrett and how the starting lineup was a disgrace.

“Gotta say,” Laura said, once Carmilla calmed down, “this is not a side I would have ever expected to see from you. You’re like, a nerd. A sports nerd.”

“I am not,” Carmilla said grumpily. “And if I _were_ , I would be a sport nerd, as in singular sport, as in baseball. And I’m not the one with a hundred stickers on her bag from every nerdy thing ever written or filmed.”

“I have eclectic tastes,” Laura said dismissively. Then she glanced down at her phone and sighed. “Okay, I guess we need to get back to working on the project.”

After a couple more hours, they felt like they had done everything they could. They had a couple of days to practice their respective parts, which Laura was extremely grateful for. She felt confident about their presentation content, but not about her ability to deliver it.

Laura packed up her bag as Carmilla cleared away the table and tossed what was left of the candy into a bag.

“You’re not leaving this with me,” she said pointedly when Laura gave her a look.

“I’m not complaining,” Laura said, snatching the bag from Carmilla’s hands with a pert look. Carmilla opened the door for her, and Laura turned to face her.

Carmilla cleared her throat, brushing her hair behind her ear. “I, uh, I had a good time today.” She looked equal parts taken aback and embarrassed by the admission.

“Don’t act so surprised, Carm,” Laura said, looking at Carmilla fondly. “Not everything is awful.”

“That has yet to be seen,” Carmilla said wryly, looking down at her feet.

Laura shook her head in exasperation, taking in the way Carmilla leaned against the doorway, her arms folded, her lean frame curled in on itself. Then, spontaneously, she leaned over and kissed Carmilla lightly on the cheek.

“Have a good night, Carmilla. See you in class.”

Laura pulled away and Carmilla nodded, once, giving Laura a faint smile. Laura turned and headed down the hallway, an image of Carmilla’s slightly bewildered face fresh on her mind.

****

On the day of the presentation, Laura woke up with butterflies in her stomach. She never had to do presentations in Journalism classes, since her focus was on print media. It was unfair - her nervousness about presentations didn’t even make sense. She was great at talking to people, at interviewing people, at presenting issues in informal settings. But something about a formal presentation setting made her mouth go dry and her stomach do flip-flops. Why had she told Carmilla she thought they didn’t need to practice together beforehand? At the time she’d said it because the thought of presenting directly to Carmilla was embarrassing, and a little terrifying. But now she was kicking herself.

She and Carmilla had agreed to meet in the Tirsch common room fifteen minutes before class. Laura, of course, got there thirty minutes early and spent the entire time frantically running through her notes in her head. She looked up at a certain point to see Carmilla striding in. Even in a class as relaxed as Scolp’s, there was a business class requirement (and expectation) that students dress up for presentations. In her mind, Laura had vaguely assumed Carmilla would buck the trend and roll up in something entirely inappropriate. But Carmilla came in that morning wearing black slacks and oxfords, with a white v-neck blouse and a blazer combo that managed to look both gender-ambiguous and professional. Laura looked down at her own outfit (dress pants, a polka dot shirt and blazer) and sighed.

“Hey cutie,” Carmilla said as she slid into the chair next to Laura. “How’s it going?”

“Not great,” Laura said with a nervous laugh, trying to keep her voice from conveying her panic. Carmilla was too observant for that, though, and frowned.

“What’s wrong? Are you freaking out?”

“Kind of?” Laura said, her voice high pitched. She swallowed. “I just - I told you, I’m really bad at presentations. My palms get all sweaty and my voice gets all squeaky. And then I just start panicking and rambling, and going into way too much detail at all the wrong parts. And I’m going to embarrass both of us so bad, especially in this class. And I know those guys with popped collars are going to judge us, even though they suck. And I _really_ want to do well on this, because we worked really hard on this presentation and you deserve a partner who can pull her own weight, and not some stupid journalism student who - “

“Hey,” Carmilla said firmly, interrupting Laura. She reached out and cupped Laura’s cheeks between her hands, making Laura meet her clear, brown eyes. “Stop that, frosh. Only I’m allowed to insult you and the entire field of journalism, okay?” Laura gave a weak smile. “Look, it’s gonna be okay. You know what you’re talking about, and I know you’ve gone over this stuff in your head way more times than necessary. You just have to treat it the way it was in our apartment - casual, like you’re presenting to….a friend. Or like you’re talking about one of those stupid shows you watch.” That got a small, watery laugh out of Laura, and Carmilla smiled at her. “The rest of the class is interested in what we have to say, because it’s an interesting organization, and we did a good job of laying out our strategic plan. Just relax, cutie, and know that I - the biggest asshole on this earth - think you’re going to do just fine. Okay?”

“Okay,” Laura whispered, drawing in a deep breath. She smiled at Carmilla. “Thanks Carm.”

Carmilla withdrew her hands and shrugged. “Whatever. Don’t need my partner vomiting on my shoes.”

Laura laughed and took another deep breath. She could do this.

The presentation didn’t go off perfectly - Laura did ramble nervously several times, but Carmilla would always give her a lifted eyebrow that brought her back on track. Laura wasn’t sure whether or not she was surprised that Carmilla presented flawlessly, slipping into a confident presenting mode that could have come straight out of a company board room. The rest of the class seem surprised too. If they thought it was a permanent change, though, they were corrected when it came time for a group of the douche-bros to answer questions and Carmilla raised her hand.

“So, tell me,” Carmilla said contemptuously, her voice acidic enough to eat through metal. “How exactly does an organization that makes millions of dollars from dues from sororities and fraternities count as a _non-profit_? Is your next philanthropic client going to be Wal-Mart?”

After the class let out, Laura turned to Carmilla and threw her arms around her. “Thank you, thank you,” she said, her voice muffled in Carmilla’s neck. “That was awesome.”

Just barely, she felt Carmilla’s arm slip around her and hug her in return. “Any time, sweetheart.” 

In that moment, Laura realized that she just might be falling for Carmilla Karnstein.


	4. Chapter 4

Carmilla couldn’t quite say why she had started going to the Bean regularly. At first she told herself it was because she needed a new place to study, now that her usual spot, Genuine Jack’s, had been featured in some foodie mag and had become flooded with hipsters. But eventually she had to admit to herself that she liked being around Laura. She liked the way her face lit up every time Carmilla came into the restaurant, as if she had a smile reserved just for her. She liked the way Laura checked in every now and then to make sure she had the coffee she needed, or occasionally slipped her a free cookie and pretended nothing had happened. Sometimes Carmilla found herself looking up from her work just to watch Laura as she spun through the coffee shop, taking orders and wiping tables and smiling at everyone, no matter how rude they were. In slow periods Laura would lean against the counter, chatting with LaFontaine or her manager Danny. She looked young and carefree in those moments, and for some reason it would always put a little ache in Carmilla’s chest.

And yeah, sometimes her tendency to yammer on about nerdy shit was insufferable. And sometimes her insistence on being persistently, unbearably perky, even at 10AM on a Thursday morning, made Carmilla want to throttle her. But sometimes all those things could be almost... _endearing_ , which made Carmilla want to slam her face into a wall. Because of all the people for her to be having _feelings_ for, it should not be some hyperactive, nerdy, starry-eyed frosh.

And why had she even let Laura get information about her childhood out of her? She had spent her whole life building walls to keep anyone from knowing about her personal life. Well, really, her mother had first built the walls, but at a certain point Carmilla had just given in and added to them. And it’s not like she’d said much to Laura - just hinted that her childhood hadn’t been ideal. But that was more than she’d told to pretty much anyone else in her life. Frankly, it scared her, that Laura could somehow tempt her to share those parts of herself. 

Part of Carmilla was telling herself to run away, to distance herself from Laura. There was no way this would end well, and there was no point in getting attached. But they were stuck together for this semester at least, and there was nothing she could do about that. And so she told herself she would let herself, just this once, have something she wanted. And then once the semester was over, she’d have a clean break and could go back to relying on Mattie and Kirsch for 90% of her human contact, and random women for the other 10%.

Whatever mental acrobatics she did to convince herself of this, it’s what led her to ask Laura if she wanted to get lunch after their next class, her tone as casual and indifferent as she could make it.

“Sure!” Laura said instantly, her face lighting up. But then her expression fell. “Oh, wait, I’m supposed to get lunch today with LaFontaine, Perry and Danny.” She hesitated, biting her lip and looking at Carmilla hesitantly. “You wouldn’t...want to join us, would you?”

Carmilla’s knee-jerk reaction was to say “Hell no.” She found LaFontaine tolerable, but the few interactions she’d had with the prissy redhead and Laura’s gargantuan manager hadn’t exactly made her want to spend a whole lunch with them. But Laura was looking at her with those hopeful, dopey Disney eyes, and without meaning to, Carmilla heard herself say,

“Sure, why not.”

“Really?” Laura said, her face brightening. “Okay, cool. We’re meeting at Sala in a half hour - want to walk over?”

“Might as well,” Carmilla said with a sigh, beginning to realize that she’d doomed herself to an hour and a half with the Bobsey twins and She-Ra. Then she had an idea to help buffer the situation. “Hey, you mind if I invite someone else?”

“Sure,” Laura said. For some reason, her face fell when Carmilla asked that question, though Carmilla wasn’t sure why.

“Cool,” Carmilla said, shooting Kirsch a quick text to see if he wanted to join them. She knew he had a block free between his two classes today. “I apologize in advance for Kirsch,” Carmilla said as she and Laura got up and headed out of the classroom. “He’s an idiot. Well-meaning, but an idiot.”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Laura said, all of her cheer instantly recovered when she heard Kirsch’s name. “Any friend of yours...well, I would expect to be terrifying, honestly.”

Carmilla rolled her eyes. “Kirsch is more like a golden retriever that got dropped off at my door and I didn’t have the heart to take to the pound. He grows on you.”

When they got to Sala, LaFontaine, Perry, and Danny were already there.

“Hope it’s okay if Carmilla joins us,” Laura said cheerfully, but also with a faint vein of iron under her tone that implied that it _better_ be okay.

“Hey, Carmilla,” LaFontaine said, giving her a chin nod.

“What’s up,” Carmilla said, sitting down at the table and offering Danny and Perry a casual, “Hey.” Perry always looked like she had steel rods in her back, her clothes never wrinkled, her diction impeccable. The one time Carmilla had overheard Perry talking to LaFontaine at the Bean, it had made Carmilla want to garrote herself with the way Perry talked as if life was an Excel spreadsheet. But LaFontaine and Laura seemed to care for her, so she must have some redeeming qualities.

She’d seen Danny a lot at the Bean but hadn’t interacted with her much, except to note the suspicious way she sometimes looked at her whenever she was talking to Laura. At first Carmilla had thought Big Red might have a thing for Laura - she knew she was queer, having picked up enough Summer Society chicks in the past to know all about Danny Lawrence. But eventually Carmilla chalked the glares up to general protectiveness. Which would be nice, if it weren’t so fucking irritating.

There was a momentary silence after they sat down, and Carmilla was suddenly afraid this would be the most awkward meal she’d had since her last meal with Mother. But then Kirsch appeared, and Danny’s eyes widened when she saw him.

“You!” she exclaimed, her voice a mixture of shock and anger.

“Oh, shit,” Kirsch said, his face falling into an expression of panic. “Uh, hi Danny. Nice to see you again.”

Carmilla’s eyes got wide as she realized that this was the redhead Kirsch had mentioned a few weeks ago - the one who he’d hit on with the skillfulness of a train hitting a wall. Her lips curled into a sly grin.

“Oh, so you two know each other?” Carmilla said innocently, and Kirsch glared at her.

“Uh, yeah,” Kirsch said, clearing his throat. “I, uh, may not have made the best first impression.”

“ _May not have made the best first impression?_ ” Danny parroted back to him indignantly. “Within the span of fifteen minutes you managed to suggest women are less capable than men, the Summer Society isn’t deserving of the respect it’s gained, and you insulted my baseball team.”

“I mean, when you say it like that, it sounds bad,” Kirsch said desperately. “But, like, I only meant that the Silas men’s soccer team has a better record than the women’s this season - that’s just, like, a fact about the present moment, not a statement on overall respective quality for all time. And the Summer Society thing was a total misunderstanding - I just meant that sometimes I wish this school liked the Zetas as much as they like you guys. I stand by my insults about the Braves,” he finished, drawing himself up and trying to appear confident. “They suck.”

Carmilla looked around the table. Laura looked like she was on the verge of panicking. LaFontaine looked mildly amused, but Perry looked enormously uncomfortable. Kirsch looked like he wanted to sink into the ground and die, and Danny looked like she wanted to help him. Carmilla, on the other hand, was thoroughly enjoying herself. Laura glanced her way and must have noticed the expression of amusement on Carmilla’s face because she scowled at Carmilla and mouthed, _Be nice. Do something_. Carmilla rolled her eyes, but then she decided to put everyone out of their misery.

“You’ve got to forgive Kirsch,” she drawled. “He has a constant case of foot-in-mouth syndrome. But I promise he’s not all bad. Take it from someone who hates every single male member of the business school - he’s the only good one.”

Danny narrowed her eyes at Carmilla, as if deciding whether she gave a shit about Carmilla’s opinion at all. Carmilla lifted her eyebrows, as if to say, Take it how you will.

“Ooookay,” Laura said, giving a nervous laugh. “Well, that was more eventful than I expected. What’s say we just go ahead and order our food and just, you know, chill out.”

“Fine,” Danny muttered, leaning back in her chair. Kirsch sighed with relief and slid into the empty seat next to Carmilla, giving her a grateful look. Just then the waiter came by, and they were too busy giving their drink orders for additional drama.

Laura changed the subject immediately, asking Perry about some goody-two-shoes club she had founded. By the time Perry had excitedly described their most recent meeting (most of which Carmilla tuned out), the waitress had come around again to take their food orders.

Danny mentioned the women’s volleyball team game that weekend and how they were on a five-game winning streak.

“Yeah, they crushed it against Hemington U,” Kirsch said - one of the first times he’d ventured to say anything.

“You follow women’s volleyball?” Danny asked skeptically. “Is it because of the uniforms they wear?”

“No,” Kirsch said, looking like a wounded puppy. “I just really like volleyball, and our women’s team is really good. My little sister plays volleyball in high school, so I kind of got into it through her.”

“Oh,” Danny said, her expression softening. “Cool. They need all the support they can get.”

“How did I end up surrounded by people who care about sportsball?” LaFontaine lamented. “Perry’s got badminton, Danny’s interested in every sport ever created, apparently you two actually follow baseball,” she continued, gesturing towards Carmilla and Kirsch. “Even Laura has krav maga.”

“Excuse me?” Carmilla exclaimed, nearly choking on her diet coke. “Krav maga?” She looked at Laura incredulously.

“Yes, don’t act so surprised,” Laura said, raising her chin defiantly. “My dad enrolled me in krav maga classes when I was, like, ten. He’s very overprotective, and thought I should know how to defend myself.”

“Huh,” Carmilla said, smirking. “Never would have guessed that of you, cupcake. Do you still do it?”

“No,” Laura said with a sigh. “They held classes at the YMCA back home, so it was basically free. But it’s, like, 120 bucks a month here, which is definitely not in my budget.”

“Hm,” Carmilla said, still processing. She had a fleeting thought about the abs Laura must have under those button-up shirts she always wore, but forced the thought down. She was saved from having to make another comment by the arrival of their food. As she was biting into her taco, she saw Kirsch lean over and murmur to Danny,

“Hey, I really am sorry about the stuff I said the other day. Things don’t always come out of my mouth the way I mean them to.”

“It’s okay,” Danny said, before smiling sweetly. “You can’t help it if you’re an idiot.”

Kirsch frowned, but then seemed to realize she was teasing him and let out of relieved puff of laughter before turning his attention to his meal.

Conversation was casual after that. Carmilla didn’t offer much other than the occasional snide remark, but she found that she didn’t exactly _hate_ sitting through lunch with everyone. After they finished paying the bill, Danny very casually said,

“Oh, hey, some of the Summer Society girls are going to the Highland Lounge tonight to celebrate our win yesterday. You guys should join.”

“Okay!” Laura said brightly. She looked at Carmilla and Kirsch. “You guys should come too!”

Kirsch looked at Carmilla hopefully, but Carmilla just said, “We’ll see.”

They left the restaurant, Carmilla and Kirsch preparing to head back to the Tirsch building. 

“It was nice to meet you, Kirsch,” Laura said cheerfully. Then she turned to Carmilla and gave her a hug. “Maybe see you tonight?” she said, after pulling away.

“Yeah, I hope so,” Kirsch said. “Bye Danny,” he continued, giving her a tentative smile. “And, uh, everyone else.”

Danny rolled her eyes. “Bye Kirsch. Carmilla,” she continued, nodding at her curtly.

Carmilla and Kirsch began walking back, silent for a moment.

“So, that was _Laura_ ,” Kirsch said, giving Carmilla a sideways glance and smirking at her. “You let her hug you.”

“Shut up,” Carmilla muttered, punching Kirsch in the shoulder. To her extreme shame, she felt herself blushing just slightly.

****

When Carmilla got home that afternoon, she checked her email. She felt an immediate constriction in her chest when she saw she had an email from her mother, but then relaxed when she realized it was just her forwarding a reminder about the Morgan Gala:

_In case you missed every other reminder about this. I expect you to be there._

Carmilla sighed and pulled out her phone, shooting Mattie a text.

 **Carmilla:** You going to the Morgan Gala?

 **Mattie:** Well hello to you too. And of course I’m going - it’s the Morgan Gala, Carmilla. Don’t tell me you’re considering bailing.

 **Carmilla:** What, and have to deal with mother’s reaction? I’ll be there. Just wanted to make sure you’ll be there to buffer.

 **Mattie:** As always. I’m getting in town a couple days beforehand. Clear some time on your busy schedule for me.

 **Carmilla:** Ugh, do I have to?

 **Mattie:** You’re a child. And yes.

Carmilla laughed.

 **Carmilla:** Okay, okay. I’ll make some time for you.

Then she typed, _I miss you_. She hesitated, her fingers hovering over the keys as if deciding whether to send. Then she deleted the words and typed:

 **Carmilla:** Try to stay longer than two days this time, if you can tear yourself away from your extremely important job.

 **Mattie:** Miss you too, Carmilla.

Carmilla smiled and slipped her phone back in her pocket.

*****  
After the fifth time Kirsch texted her asking if she wanted to try to go to the Summer Society event, Carmilla finally caved.

 **Carmilla:** Fine. Let’s go out for drinks tonight at the Holyoak, which is near Highland. Then if you want to hang out with Xena you can meet up with them afterwards.

 **Kirsch:** Awesome. And don’t act like part of you doesn’t want to meet up with Laura.

 **Carmilla:** Don’t test me, Kirsch.

Carmilla knew Kirsch was right, though - she did sort of want to meet up with Laura, despite her best judgment. So it’s possible she put a bit more attention to her appearance than usual, which for her meant picking one of her slightly nicer black cutoffs and her non-torn black jeans.

She met up with Kirsch at the Holyoak, a slightly kitschy bar whose schtick would have irritated Carmilla if it weren’t so clearly a dive bar. They had a couple rounds, and Carmilla was just beginning to feel the impacts of her drinks when she realized she had missed a couple texts. She opened her phone to find they were all from Laura, each coming about a minute after the other.

 **Laura:** Hey! So I don’t know if you and Kirsch were actually into it or not, but just wanted to let you know that we’re at the Highland.

 **Laura:** No pressure though. I know it’s maybe not your scene.

 **Laura:** I think Danny might not hate Kirsch now, if that makes a difference.

 **Laura:** Not that not-hatred should be the way I tempt you to meet up with us.

 **Laura:** Not that I’m trying to tempt you at all. That would be weird.

 **Laura:** I really wish you could edit-undo text messages. I’m the worst.

 **Carmilla:** Chill out, creampuff. Kirsch has been begging me to meet up with you guys, and I can’t say no to the big puppy. We’ll be there in a few.

 **Laura:** Yay!!! (lots of smiley emoticons)

Carmilla shook her head fondly, and looked up at Kirsch. “Your wish has come true - I just told Laura we’d meet up with them after we finish this round.”

Kirsch’s face lit up, and he downed the rest of his drink in one gulp.

Carmilla had been to her fair share of clubs in the city - even someone as prickly as Carmilla could appreciate the value of sweaty dancing with cute girls - but she had somehow never been to Highland. She was mildly dreading it, assuming it would be one of those Eurotrash-lite places with a clientele largely comprised of skeezy straights. She was pleasantly surprised when she entered to see that it was mostly women inside, and a fair number of whom were clearly on her team. The reason for this became a little more apparent when she realized the Summer Society had billed the event as a fundraiser for women’s rugby. She and Kirsch paid the cover and went inside.

They went to the bar and Carmilla bought them both a drink, before they wandered to the edge of the dance floor.

“Let me know if you see them,” Carmilla yelled over the music. “You’ve got a way better vantage point than me, you giant.”

Kirsch laughed and began scanning the room. “Yo, I see them,” he said, pointing towards the far part of the floor. Carmilla followed his finger and saw Laura, Danny, LaFontaine, Perry, and a handful of girls she didn’t know dancing together. Laura was wearing skinny jeans and a tight red tanktop - nothing over-the-top, but it did leave less to the imagination than her usual blouses and buttons up. Carmilla threw back the rest of her drink and put it on a nearby table before jerking her head that way for Kirsch and heading into the crowd.

The moment Laura saw her, her expression brightened into sunshine and she threw her arms around Carmilla’s neck.

“You came!” she exclaimed, her breath warm on Carmilla’s neck.

“I said I would, poptart,” Carmilla said into her hair, giving Laura the smallest squeeze before letting go. She looked around and gave a little wave to LaFontaine and Perry, who smiled and waved back. Kirsch had already gotten a little closer to Danny, giving her a shy “Hey.” “Hey,” Danny said back, giving him a small smile and rolling her eyes.

Carmilla cleared her throat. “Anyone need a drink?” she yelled over the crowd. To Carmilla’s surprise, Perry’s hand shot up, but no one else’s.

Carmilla turned back to Laura. “Can I get you something, cutie?” 

“Gin and tonic?” Laura said, beaming at Carmilla.

“You got it,” Carmilla said, winking at her. Carmilla went to the bar, paying for three G&T’s to keep things simple. When she got back and handed one to Perry, Perry let out an enthusiastic,

“Thank you!” Carmilla could tell she had had quite a few drinks, and was relatively amused to see what Perry looked like when she loosened up. Perry leaned in towards Carmilla conspiratorially, and Carmilla instinctively leaned towards her too. “Don’t screw Laura up, okay? She doesn’t deserve that.” Carmilla pulled back in shock, feeling as if Perry had slapped her. She saw that Perry’s eyes were deadly serious. Carmilla swallowed and gave a single nod. Perry gave her a searching look, as if making sure she meant it. Then she nodded and gave Carmilla a small smile, before turning away from Carmilla and grabbing LaFontaine so they could dance together.

Carmilla made her way over to Laura, feeling disoriented. She didn’t want to hurt Laura - that was the last thing she wanted. She knew she had a bad reputation - a reputation that was pretty deserved, actually. But it’s not like she had made any kind of move towards Laura. Perry’s words were ringing in her head; to get rid of them she quickly downed her drink, just as she got to Laura and handed hers to her.

Laura lifted an eyebrow. “Going hard tonight?”

“Always do,” Carmilla said, and then had to laugh at herself when Laura rolled her eyes, realizing that the statement was beyond cliched.

“C’mon,” Laura said, grabbing Carmilla’s hand and pulling her further into the dance floor. Carmilla could tell by her speech that she was a little tipsy herself. “Let’s dance.”

Carmilla was feeling the buzz of her drinks, and the music was actually good. She watched as Laura pulled LaFontaine over and the two of them competed for who could do the most ridiculous dance. She was an adorable dork, and ultimately LaFontaine had to concede defeat to her one-legged sprinkler dance, Carmilla holding back laughter the whole time. The group of mostly women (and Kirsch) danced together like friends, in that way Carmilla always saw on movies and tv shows but had never experienced herself. Dancing for her had always been an opportunity to get girls - to get closer to them without talking, to let their bodies communicate because doing it the other way could get so complicated. But with everyone tonight it was just...fun. At some point Carmilla glanced over at Kirsch, who had been acting the fool with all of the women, playing up his “sick” dance moves. He grinned at Carmilla, and she realized how happy it made her that he was having a good time. 

At a certain point in the night, LaFontaine took a very drunk Perry home, making their apologies to everyone. Their circle of Summer Soc’s peeled away one by one, until it was just Carmilla and Laura, and Kirsch and Danny. Finally Kirsch came over to Carmilla, while Danny was talking to Laura.

“Lawrence is gonna give me a ride home,” Kirsch said. “She hasn’t been drinking and I...kind of have.”

“How the fuck did you manage to get back on her good side?” Carmilla said, shaking her head in amusement. “You insult everything she believes in, and somehow you still come out on top.”

“I’m very charming,” Kirsch said, drawing himself up. 

Carmilla snorted. “Sure you are. Alright, I think Laura wants to stay a little longer, but I’ll get her home safe.”

“I bet you will,” Kirsch said, waggling his eyebrows.

“Gross,” Carmilla said with a frown, shoving Kirsch away from her. “Get out of here.”

She went back to Laura. “Looks like everyone’s left - you want to head out?” 

Some song Carmilla had never heard of came on, but Laura exclaimed, “No - I love this song! We have to dance.” Her hair was mussed from dancing, her eyes bright and a little unfocused. She grabbed Carmilla and held her at the hips, shimmying to the beat in a way that made Carmilla laugh. Then she turned around, grinding against Carmilla in an over-the-top way, as if she was every drunk girl at a frat party who thought she was hot-shit. She turned back to Carmilla, laughing and smiling, and Carmilla couldn’t help but return the expression. 

The song suddenly transitioned to something slower and sexier and Laura moved in closer to Carmilla, sliding her arms around her waist. In an instant, everything shifted, and Laura was no longer in a playful mood. Her body was warm and close, her hips against Carmilla’s, her chin at Carmilla’s shoulder. She looked at Carmilla, her expression serious and questioning, her teeth just biting her lower lip. She spun around and pulled Carmilla’s arms around her waist. Carmilla felt the warm skin of Laura’s belly where her tanktop had ridden up, felt the pressure of Laura’s back pressed against her. She tightened her grip around Laura’s waist, letting her chin rest on Laura’s shoulder as they moved to the beat. Her heart was pounding, and all she wanted to do was spin Laura around and kiss her - kiss her until they both forgot about anything in the world but each other.

But then she heard Perry’s words in her mind, and then her mother’s, and she froze. The song ended, and Carmilla disentangled herself from Laura. Laura turned to her, a questioning look on her face. Carmilla smiled at her gently. “Hey, cupcake, I think it’s time for us to head home.”

“Oh, okay,” Laura said, trying to mask her disappointment. “You can head out - I’ll just grab a cab.”

“I’m not going to leave you here, idiot,” Carmilla said with exasperation. She looked down at her phone. “Jesus! It’s 3AM. Yeah, you’re not going home drunk and alone. Come on - we’ll Uber to my place - it’s only a few blocks away.”

“Okey dokey,” Laura said, wrapping her arm around Carmilla’s and tugging her towards the door. “Did you know that this place used to be a speakzy - a speaksasy - a _speakeasy_ ,” she said, carefully enunciating the last word so she got it right, her face scrunching up in concentration.

“No, I sure didn’t,” Carmilla said, humoring her. “Did you learn that in one of your nerd books?”

“No!” Laura exclaimed, giving Carmilla an indignant look before frowning. “Wait, yes. It was a nerd book. It was about historical landmarks in the city. Did you know that during Prohibition the mafia like, owned this whole neighborhood?”

“Isn’t that the same in pretty much every American city during Prohibition?” Carmilla said, amused.

“Yeah, I know, but let me tell you about this one in particular.”

Carmilla listened patiently as Laura regaled her with facts about the city, meanwhile steering her outside and putting in a request for an Uber driver. Laura’s rambling didn’t end once they got in the car - instead she shifted her attention to the driver, asking him about his life, his experience as a driver, his thoughts on the election.

When they got to Carmilla’s apartment, she thanked their driver and led Laura inside, giving a nod to the front-desk man.

“Have I told you you have a nice apartment?” Laura said, when the were on the elevator. “Do famous people live here?”

“David Bowie lives next door,” Carmilla deadpanned.

“Really?” Laura exclaimed excitedly.

“No, cupcake - David Bowie is dead, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” Laura said, her face falling. “That’s very sad.”

“It is,” Carmilla agreed seriously. “I had trouble getting out of bed for several days after it happened.” She wasn’t lying, but she didn’t think Laura would remember in the morning, so she didn’t mind. Meanwhile, she led Laura out of the elevator and to her door. Once they got inside, Carmilla immediately went to the kitchen and poured Laura a glass of water and grabbed her a leftover muffin from breakfast.

“Here, drink this,” she said, handing in to Laura, who had collapsed on the couch. “And eat a few bites of this - it will keep you from having a hangover. How did you get so drunk?”

“I don’t know,” Laura said plaintively, accepting the glass and muffin from Carmilla. “I mean, I guess I had a few before we went out. And then you got me those drinks. And then Kirsch bought that shot. And Perry gave me the rest of hers. So I guess, in retrospect, I got drunk because I drank a lot?”

“That makes sense,” Carmilla said, trying not to laugh. “I’m serious - drink that.”

Laura nodded seriously and downed half the glass, scarfed down the muffin, and then drank the rest of the water. 

“Good?” she said to Carmilla, handing the glass back.

“Good,” Carmilla said with a nod. “Now c’mon - let’s get your shoes off.”

Laura was sober enough to take her own shoes off, and shimmy out of her jeans. Carmilla respectfully shot her eyes away from Laura’s bare legs, but not before she noted that krav maga had done wonders for them. As if she owned the place, Laura flopped onto Carmilla’s bed and crawled under the covers.

“You doing okay?” Carmilla asked, standing in the doorway. “Do you have the spins or anything?”

“Nope,” Laura said, shaking her head more times than necessary. “No spins.”

“Okay, then, cupcake, I’m going to go to the couch.”

“No!” Laura exclaimed, sitting upright and then blinking rapidly, as if dizzy. “That’s not fair. This is your bed. _I’ll_ go sleep on the couch.”

“The hell you will,” Carmilla said, snorting.

“No,” Laura said determinedly, throwing the cover off her legs and seemingly concentrating on whatever the next step was. Carmilla moved over to the bed and lightly restrained Laura by the shoulder. “Stop it, you nutcase.” She sighed and ran her hand through her hair. “Look, if I sleep on the other side of the bed, you promise no funny business?” She quirked her lips, meaning it as a joke. But Laura looked up at her with eyes suddenly fifty percent clearer - direct and almost challenging.

“Not unless you want me to,” she said, her voice husky in a way Carmilla had never heard before. Carmilla cleared her throat and swallowed, feeling a sudden flood of warmth at the sound of Laura’s voice, at the way she was looking at her, at the thought of her in her bed half-naked. Which were thoughts she was not supposed to be having. She considered insisting on the couch again, but she knew enough by now about Laura’s stubbornness to know that would lead to a half hour argument.

“I don’t,” she said, lifting an eyebrow. “Invisible line down the middle of the bed, okay drunky-pants?”

“Fine,” Laura sighed, suddenly shifting back to the pouty, ridiculous drunk girl she had been five minutes before. “But I have to warn you - I’m kind of a sleep-cuddler.”

“We’ll see,” Carmilla said dryly, meanwhile tossing off her own boots and pants and slipping on some boxers. She flipped the light switch and crawled into bed, staying relatively close to the edge. 

“Good night, Carm,” Laura murmured from her side of the bed, her voice already slipping into sleep.

“Good night, Laura,” Carmilla murmured back. She waited a moment, and then heard the even sound of Laura breathing in and out.

 _Well this is a fucking first,_ Carmilla thought to herself wryly. Usually she was doing everything in her power to get in bed with a cute girl, and suddenly she was the one acting like the very, very cute one currently in her bed was radioactive. 

She didn’t even know where the hell this ability to take care of Laura had come from. She’d helped Mattie a couple of times when she’d gotten drunk with friends when she was back home from college - making fun of her the whole time of course - and she’d provided Kirsch with more than his fair share of day-after hangover food whenever his frat brothers had gotten him wasted the night before. But Carmilla didn’t have people in her life she did this for regularly. And she certainly didn’t have people who did it for her. She’d always just taken care of herself on the nights where everything felt empty and nothing felt worth it, on the nights where the only things that kept her from losing it entirely were drinking and fucking or both. The girls who came home with her didn’t stick around long enough to peel her off the bathroom floor, or make sure she ate something the day after a bender. And she had never given it much thought, because she figured that’s just the way it should be.

But somehow with Laura she’d slipped into caring for her as if she’d been doing it her whole life. And it wasn’t because she wasn’t attracted to her, because _god_ was she attracted to her. The way she pressed against Carmilla on the dance floor, the way she filled out those fucking blouses, the way her face lit up when she saw Carmilla -- as if she meant it. Carmilla closed her eyes and drew in a shaky breath, trying to push down those feelings. Because she knew she would fuck it up. She knew it, because she’d never not fucked it up. Perry was right. If she tried anything with Laura, she would ruin everything, and she would hurt Laura. That was just a fact.

But the thought of not having Laura in her life made Carmilla’s chest hurt so much she couldn’t stand it. How the fuck had she let this happen?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to everyone who's been leaving kudos and comments - they really help keep me writing. Next few chapters get progressively wompy.

Laura woke up slowly out of a disorienting dream about a sentient library, a demonic possession, and the apocalypse. Her mind was fuzzy, and she had a faint, pulsing headache at her temples. When she finally opened her eyes, she realized that what she thought was a pillow was actually someone’s shoulder. She had a moment of panic, trying to pull in the hazy threads of last night’s memory. It was when she glanced down and saw that the person was wearing a black Sleater-Kinney t-shirt that she remembered she was in Carmilla’s apartment. In bed. With Carmilla. 

Laura’s head was resting on Carmilla’s shoulder, her arm flung across Carmilla’s chest, which was rising and falling in even breaths. Carmilla had one arm loosely draped over Laura’s shoulder where Laura curled into her body.

Laura made her body very still, trying not to wake Carmilla. But despite her best efforts, she felt Carmilla stir, her body shifting minutely. Laura waited, unable to see Carmilla’s face, not sure whether she should fling herself away from her, or if that would make things worse. A few moments passed, and Laura wasn't sure whether or not Carmilla was awake. Then Laura felt the lightest touch at her temple as Carmilla gently brushed the hair away from her face. But then Carmilla’s fingers stilled, and she pulled her hand away. Carmilla cleared her throat quietly, and Laura took the hint, sitting up a little and moving away from Carmilla.

“Um, hi,” Laura said, smiling tentatively at Carmilla. 

“Morning, cupcake,” Carmilla said, her voice raspy in the morning. Her hair was mussed from the pillow, her eyeliner a little smudged, but somehow she still managed to look beautiful.

“Sorry...sorry for the cuddling,” Laura said with a nervous laugh. “I told you, sleep-cuddler here.”

“You did tell me that,” Carmilla said, quirking an eyebrow. “You told me a lot of things last night.”

“Oh, god,” Laura said, burying her face in her hands. “Was I a complete idiot? Do I need to apologize to anyone?”

“Yes you were a complete idiot, but no you don’t need to apologize to anyone.” Laura looked up at Carmilla to see her smirking at her. Laura scowled.

“You know, it’s unfair to take advantage of someone who’s drunk,” she said haughtily.

“Oh, you mean take advantage, like take your drunk ass home, get you to drink a glass of water, tuck you into bed, listen to you snore, and let you crush me with your body?”

“I don’t snore,” Laura muttered, seizing on the only item she thought Carmilla might be lying about. She found an invisible thread in the sheets and picked at it.

Carmilla huffed out a laugh. “It’s fine, cutie. You had a couple drinks, you told me all about historical landmarks, you forgot David Bowie died, you slept it off. It’s not a big deal.”

“Okay,” Laura said with a sigh of relief. She was beginning to remember the rest of the night, including the part where she and Carmilla had been dancing. And she was remembering the way Carmilla looked, hair a little damp with sweat, eyes intent on Laura as they danced. The way it had felt to have Carmilla pressed against her, her arms wrapped around her. The way she had wanted Carmilla to kiss her all night. Without meaning to, Laura found herself blushing and ducked her head so her hair would hide it. “But really,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry. And thank you for taking care of me.”

“It’s fine, cupcake,” Carmilla said with a shrug. “Nothing I wouldn’t expect from a frosh.”

“Hey!” Laura said indignantly, throwing a pillow at Carmilla. Carmilla caught the pillow, smirking at her. Part of Laura wanted to let the conversation move away, but she also wanted to be bold. Because Carmilla’s v-neck shirt was giving her goosebumps, and that wry expression on Carmilla’s face was giving her feelings, and it was too soon to forget how good it felt to wake up next to her. So she took a deep breath, telling herself it was better to ask.

“So, really, though, about last night. I know, maybe for you it was just dancing, and I totally get that. But I just wanted to know…” She couldn’t quite meet Carmilla’s eyes, so she took a deep breath and forged ahead, “Was that something more? I mean, I know I’m just some frosh and you were probably just having fun, but…I just want to know where we stand.”

She finally looked up at Carmilla, and was shocked to see that Carmilla’s expression almost looked scared. Carmilla drew a breath, and Laura felt even more anxious when she realized Carmilla wasn’t going to respond to her with something flippant.

“I’m… I don’t really know how to say this,” Carmilla said, and now it was her turn not to meet Laura’s eyes. “I, uh, I don’t do well with relationships. Like, I screw them up, every time? And then I don’t see that person ever again. And I don’t want that to happen with us. Because...I like spending time with you. And I want us to be...to keep being the way we are now.”

Carmilla looked up at Laura now, her expression guarded and vulnerable at the same time. And realization hit Laura like a wave, as her mind picked up on the words Carmilla had used, and those she hadn’t. It was like Carmilla couldn’t even form the words to say she wanted them to be _friends_. Laura thought of the way Carmilla had carefully cultivated an attitude designed to push people away. She thought of the way Carmilla acted like she was only an observer whenever she was in groups, even during a night like last night, when she was surrounded by what Laura considered friends. She thought of how tightly Carmilla held to her privacy, and how there were parts of her past she may have never told anyone. This was a level of self-isolation Laura couldn’t even fathom, because her whole life was built around human connections. And in the face of Carmilla’s unstated plea, Laura knew there was only one thing she could do.

“Okay, dude,” Laura said, making her tone as light-hearted as she could. Carmilla looked up at her, her expression slightly confused.

“What?”

“I said okay,” Laura said, rolling her eyes. “I mean, I can’t blame you that you want to be BFF with all of _this_ ,” she said, gesturing to herself and shimmying her body while making an obnoxious, arrogant face at Carmilla. “I’m pretty much the best. So if you want to be my friend, I can’t blame you. I guess I’ll be yours, but only cuz you’re, like, super famous, and you’re the only reason I’m not flunking my business school class.”

“You’re an asshole,” Carmilla said, but she was laughing, her relief palpable in the way her body relaxed. She threw the pillow back at Laura, and since Laura wasn’t prepared, it hit her square in the face, which set Carmilla off laughing harder.

Laura was giggling, but when she finally recovered her breath she looked at Carmilla more seriously. “We were already, you know,” she said, making sure Carmilla would meet her gaze. “Friends.”

Carmilla gave a single nod, her expression unreadable. Then she flopped back down on the bed. “Okay, _friend_ , what hangover food do you want to get this morning?”

**********

After that morning, they started hanging out regularly, not just for lunches after class and during the times Carmilla worked at the Bean. At first it was only Laura instigating, asking Carmilla out to lunch or to see whatever movie Laura felt was pretentious enough to entice Carmilla. But at one point Carmilla texted her:

 **Carmilla:** I’m hungry. Let’s get sushi.

And Laura knew she was in. 

A week after the dancefloor incident Carmilla invited Laura to a Mets game with her and Kirsch, and Kirsch invited Danny. Carmilla claimed to regret the whole thing when Laura couldn’t stop asking questions about the game. Carmilla seemed much less willing to be effusive about baseball when there were others around. Luckily Kirsch and Danny were much more willing to answer than Carmilla was, and by the end of the game Laura felt like she had some slight improvement in knowledge. She liked hanging out with Carmilla and Kirsch, and not just because she thought Kirsch was hilarious. She liked the way Carmilla relaxed around him, just a little, and the way their easy camaraderie had the hint of a sibling relationship. She didn’t even think Carmilla realized how much easier she was when she was with him.

Carmilla refused to go to any campus events, or parties Laura’s friends were going to, or any event that took place inside a dorm. But after much wheedling on Laura’s part, she finally agreed to go to trivia at the Jester. Laura thought they had their bases pretty well covered: LaF had science, Perry had current events, Danny had history, Kirsch had sports, and Laura had all things nerdy. Laura thought Carmilla was going to spend the whole night silently scowling into her beer while the rest of them brainstormed answers. But then late in the first round, a question came up about a French philosopher that stumped them. Carmilla rolled her eyes and grabbed the answer sheet from Danny.

“It’s Voltaire, you morons,” she said, scribbling the answer down. It turned out Carmilla filled in most of the gaps they had for philosophy, art, and literature. They won the game handily (receiving a $75 free bar tab for their next visit). As the rest of their team cheered, Carmilla allowed herself a grudging smile, which turned into a chuckle when she saw the way Laura was grinning at her.

“Admit it, you had fun,” Laura said to Carmilla as they were leaving the Jester, Laura’s arm wrapped around Carmilla’s.

Carmilla shrugged. “Maybe. And it would have been embarrassing if we had lost.”

When she wasn't careful, Laura found herself thinking of Carmilla as more than a friend. She did it when Camilla would have that wrinkle in her forehead when she was studying at the Bean, or when she actually let loose and smiled at Laura, or, well, really anytime. But Laura always tamped down on those feelings, because she knew that someone too scared to ask for a friend was in desperate need of one. Besides, she didn’t even know if Carmilla felt that way about her - Carmilla was a shameless flirt with every girl, and Laura told herself that she shouldn’t read anything into Carmilla’s behavior towards her.

About two weeks after their official friendship began, Laura received a gchat message from Carmilla.

 **Carmilla:** Hey. So I know it’s short notice, but do you want to go to this with me?

She included a link. When Laura clicked it, she found it was for the Morgan Gala, which appeared to be an enormous, swanky fundraising event in the city in a week.

 **Laura:** This is for your mom’s foundation, right?

 **Carmilla:** Right. It’s pretty much the biggest fundraising event of the year for them. Lots of pretentious dickholes rubbing elbows and patting themselves on the back for how generous they are. 

**Laura:** You’re really selling it for me here, Carm.

 **Carmilla:** Did I mention the food is amazing, and sometimes there are celebrities? Last year Geena Davis gave the keynote.

 **Laura:** I’m in.

 **Carmilla:** Nerd. But seriously, do you want to go? My sister Mattie will be there, but the more buffers I have the better.

 **Laura:** Yeah, totally. But that means I’ll need to buy a dress, right?

 **Carmilla:** I mean, you could roll up in in skinny jeans and that doofy owl sweater you wear. But you might feel out of place.

 **Laura:** Shut up. Okay, I’m in!

 **Carmilla:** Cool. Just one other thing, though. I know we’re going as friends, but sometimes there’s media scrutiny at these things. There’s a chance they’ll misread things and spread rumors that we’re dating or something.

 **Laura:** Nice. I need to boost my street cred as a ladies’ lady.

 **Carmilla:** Oh my god you are such a dork. Okay, just wanted you to know.

 **Laura:** Noted. Okay, I gotta meet up with LaF but send me all the details and we’re figure it out. Thanks for the invite, Carm!

 **Carmilla:** We’ll see if you’re still thanking me after three hours schmoozing with the worst people on earth.

Laura knew LaFontaine too well to invite them dress shopping, but Danny and Perry were more than happy to join her. She finally settled on a royal blue dress that seemed like an appropriate mix of classy and flattering. It was way out of her budget, but she didn’t let herself think of that too hard, promising herself that she’d up her ramen noodle intake over the next month.

They’d agreed to meet at Carmilla’s apartment before the event. Laura hesitated outside Carmilla’s door, feeling nervous and sweaty-palmed. She was suddenly second-guessing her dress choice, worried she’d look like a little kid playing dress-up among the grownups. She didn’t belong at a fancy fundraiser. But Carmilla had invited her, and it seemed like she wanted her there, so Laura girled the hell up and knocked on the door.

A moment later, Carmilla opened the door. She was dressed in a black tuxedo suit, with a white blouse that plunged at the neckline. Her hair was down, falling in soft waves to her shoulders. She looked so dapper Laura could hardly stand it, and for a second Laura found she had trouble breathing. For her part, Carmilla’s eyes had widened the moment she saw Laura, and her expression was tilting dangerously towards a leer.

“Well you clean up nice,” Carmilla said, lifting an eyebrow appreciatively.

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” Laura said, trying not to blush.

“Let me grab my keys and we can head out,” Carmilla said. “Wouldn’t want to miss all the rubbing elbows.”

They traded news on the way there, Laura filling Carmilla in on the crazy patrons at the Bean, Carmilla telling Laura about some obscure art film she’d just watched. When the arrived at the Heller Hotel where the gala was being held, Carmilla handed her keys to the valet and stepped around the car to open Laura’s door.

“Oooh, how very chivalrous of you,” Laura said in a dorky voice, about to make fun of Carmilla more. But then she saw a flash of light and turned to realize it was a photographer. Actually, several photographers, all of whom were lined along the sides of the carpeted steps, taking pictures of those entering the hotel. “Oh my god. It’s like, an actual red carpet.”

“I know,” Carmilla said with a sigh. She glanced over and saw Laura’s wide eyes and stunned expression, and puffed out a laugh. “Just breathe, cupcake. C’mon.” She held out her elbow to Laura. Laura looked at Carmilla, dapper and charming, and there with _her_. She drew in a deep breath and slipped her arm through Carmilla’s, turning to face the building. They walked down the carpet and up the stairs, Laura trying her best to ignore the flashes of lights and indistinguishable words a couple of the photographers yelled at them. 

When they entered the lobby, Laura couldn’t decide where her eyes should focus. She had never been in a hotel this fancy. A giant golden chandelier hung from the main room. All the furniture was old, expensive-looking wood. The central staircase made two swooping, elegant curves that split the room. And the place was filled with people dressed to the nines, leisurely making their way up the stairs and Laura assumed to the central ballroom.

“Is it too late for me to back out?” Laura whispered, involuntarily squeezing Carmilla’s arm. “I don’t exactly feel like I belong here.”

“That’s not a bad thing, poptart,” Carmilla said flippantly, but then noticed the way Laura didn’t looked convinced. “Look,” she continued, her voice softening, “you belong here just as much, if not more, than everyone else. No one handed you a pile of cash and said, ‘give this away so you feel good about yourself.’ You’re trying to do good in the world without the advantages of these schmucks. Plus, you look really fucking good in that dress.”

Laura blushed and nudged Carmilla with her shoulder. “You can be a softy sometimes, you know that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carmilla sniffed dismissively, turning to face the staircase. “Now c’mon - let’s get this over with.”

They walked together up the stairs, Laura feeling like she was in some kind of Baz Luhrmann film. When they rounded the corner and stepped into the main room, she froze again. The room was opulently decorated, the gold and red decorations giving the room a rich, warm tone. Waiters flowed in and out of the well-dressed crowd, offering them champagne and appetizers.

“So the only gala I’ve been to is the one our LGBT club threw when I was in eleventh grade. And we only called it a gala because, y’know, _gay_ -la, and we were 16 and thought that was funny. And that was in our gym. So this is, you know, different.”

“I should hope so,” Carmilla said. She disentangled her arm from Laura’s so she could scoop up two glasses of champagne from the waiter walking near them. “This is what it’s all about - free booze and free food.”

“I can drink to that,” Laura said, clinking her glass with Carmilla’s and grinning. She took a sip of the champagne and puffed out an appreciative breath. “This beats the Andre I usually have.”

“Philistine,” Carmilla said with a sniff. She was scanning the room, clearly looking for someone. Laura could tell she’s found her target because she straightened up a little, and her eyes brightened. Laura followed Carmilla’s gaze just as the object of her stare turned and noticed Carmilla. Laura recognized Matzka from the occasional picture she’d seen of her, but the photos didn’t do her justice. She was stunningly beautiful, especially in the deep red dress she wore. And Laura was not prepared for the way her smile transformed her face when she caught sight of Carmilla.

“Whoa,” Laura said, blinking.

“Mattie has that effect on people,” Carmilla said dryly, but Laura could tell there was pride underneath her words. She started walking towards Mattie and Laura followed. 

“Hello darling,” Mattie said when they reached her, giving Carmilla a kiss on each cheek. She eyed Carmilla’s outfit, giving her a head-to-toe appraisal. “I see you went with the suit again. Mother will be thrilled.”

“It’s 2016, Mattie,” Carmilla snarked. “Women can wear suits. And pants. And vote, and drink.”

“Oh, I know you can drink, darling,” Mattie said, her lips curling up into a smirk. “I haven’t forgotten New Year’s last year.”

“And I haven’t forgotten that night in Marseille when you got hammered from two $300 bottles of Bordeaux,” Carmilla retorted with a snort, smiling smugly as she saw Mattie narrow her eyes at her. “Pot, meet drunk kettle.”

“Yes, well, at least I’m not getting drunk off of...PBR, or whatever hipster swill you insist on drinking.”

“I’m not a hipster,” Carmilla gritted out, scowling at Mattie as Mattie smirked back at her. Then she shrugged. “And unlike you, I don’t spend money like it’s going out of style. Not my fault you never developed any fiscal responsibility.”

“Fiscal responsibility? Is that what they taught you at that third-rate business school you’re at?”

“By third-rate do you mean top-tier, internationally ranked?” Carmilla retorted. “I may not have gone to Stanford, but at least my Dean wasn’t involved in a sex scandal.”

“Yes, probably because your Dean’s face looks like it spent some time in a toaster oven.”

“How very feminist of you, Mattie - going after a powerful woman’s appearance.”

“Better that than I go after her mediocre credentials. Where did she get her MBA? Oh, right, Silas.”

“You’re an insufferable snob.”

“Takes one to know one, dear.”

By this point Laura felt like she had whiplash from looking back and forth between the two of them, feeling completely bewildered. But then she realized that they were grinning at each other, as if they’d been spending this whole time trading compliments. 

“I have missed you, darling,” Mattie said fondly, and Carmilla gave a one-shouldered shrug as if to say, Me too. “Now,” Mattie continued, turning to Laura. “Who is this?”

“Hi,” Laura said, her voice coming out a little squeakier than she intended it to. She held out her right hand. “I’m Laura Hollis.” 

“Ah, so you’re the Laura that my sister kept accidentally mentioning all through lunch yesterday.” Mattie took Laura’s hand and pulled her in for a kiss to each cheek. “I didn’t know my sister had it in her to make friends.”

“It was...a little rocky at first,” Laura admitted, and Carmilla scowled at her. Mattie laughed.

“I don’t doubt it. Carmilla has the manners of an angry cactus at times. You’ve got to know how to handle her. Carmilla mentioned you’re a journalism student?”

“I am!” Laura said proudly.

Mattie shook her head, her expression mournful. “You poor dear,” and Carmilla snorted out a laugh.

“Hey!” Laura exclaimed indignantly. “It’s bad enough with Carmilla - I don’t need both the Karnsteins getting on my case.”

“We’re just looking out for you, Hollis,” Carmilla said, smirking at her. “It’s not too late to join the dark side and take up hedge fund accounting.”

“Blech,” Laura said, scrunching up her face in disgust. “I’d rather take my chances being an impoverished journalist.”

Mattie smiled. “Yes, well, this world isn’t for everyone. Still not convinced it’s for Carmilla.”

“You and me both,” Carmilla said dryly. She glanced around, and Laura realized that most of those currently mingling appeared to be heading towards tables. Carmilla sighed. “Well, looks like the table small-talk portion of this nightmare has begun. Who did mother put us at a table with this time?”

Mattie blanched. “Vordenberg,” she said, her voice dripping with disdain.

“Ugh,” Carmilla said, giving an almost full-body eye-roll. “I fucking hate that guy. He creeps me out - has ever since we first met him when we were kids. If he wasn’t richer than half of Eastern Europe mother would have put a hit out on him years ago.”

“Yes, well, he does have lots of money,” Mattie said wryly, “and in case you hadn’t noticed, money is the reason for all of this. Stop being so melodramatic - it’s for a good cause.”

“Yeah, so these douchebags can wank off tonight to how generous they feel,” Carmilla muttered under her breath, and Laura stifled a laugh.

“Come on,” Mattie said, turning and beginning to walk away. “Time to dance for our dinner.”

When they arrived at their table, there were already two couples sitting there. One was Vordenburg and his much, much younger mistress (Laura only knew she was a mistress because Carmilla whispered that fact to her). There was another well-dressed, middle-aged couple whose names Laura forgot the moment she was introduced. They eyed her a bit suspiciously, as if unclear what she was doing there. Laura was afraid she would end up sitting there awkwardly until dinner, but Carmilla proceeded to entirely ignore the rest of the table, even when the rest of it filled out, and talk exclusively to Laura. Mattie did a much better job of smiling and acting nice; she seemed to know intimate details about everyone’s life, and Laura watched in mild amazement as she managed to win over every person at the table.

“You can see who got all the charm in the family,” Carmilla said wryly, loud enough for Mattie to hear.

“I think you’re plenty charming, when you want to be,” Laura said, smiling at Carmilla sweetly. Carmilla was beginning to return her smile when Laura corrected herself. “Which, if we’re being fair, is practically never.” Carmilla scowled at Laura and both Laura and Mattie laughed.

“I’m attacked on every side now,” Carmilla muttered, which made Laura giggle harder. Only a couple minutes later, the lights dimmed briefly, and Laura looked up to see that Lilita Karnstein was at the podium at front of the room. Carmilla’s mother was a small woman, but she commanded the room as if she were ten feet tall. She wore a black dress that even Laura could tell was couture. Her black hair was streaked with grey, which somehow made her look distinguished rather than old. She had an authoritative presence, which was apparent in the way the room quieted as soon as people began noticing she was on stage.

“Good evening,” she said, her voice warm and engaging. “We at the Karnstein Foundation are so glad you could join us. I am Lilita Karnstein, chair of the Foundation. It’s an honor to be with you today. Before you begin your meals, I’d like to provide you with a brief introduction to the Foundation and our work to change lives and minds.” 

She continued her speech, discussing the work the Karnstein Foundation had done in developing nations. She spoke passionately, providing compelling stories of lives that had been changed through their work. Her words were measured but earnest, and her charisma was palpable. By the end of her speech, Laura found herself applauding with everyone else, feeling somehow elated by the whole thing. She turned to Carmilla, about to tell her how amazing her mother was. But Carmilla’s face was blank as she looked at the podium, as if nothing her mother had said had impacted her. Laura let the words fall dead on her lips. Without quite knowing why she did it, she reached over and let her hand rest on Carmilla’s thigh, squeezing just slightly.

Carmilla started, as if she hadn’t been expecting the touch, and her eyes cleared a little. She looked at Laura and gave her a slight smile, her eyes still a little distant. “Hey, poptart, I need to run to the washroom. Don’t let some other devastatingly attractive millionaire take my spot, okay?”

“Only if she’s got gummy bears in her pockets,” Laura joked, and Carmilla rolled her eyes, squeezing Laura’s hand just slightly as she got up. Laura watched her go, frowning at the way Carmilla looked suddenly small, her shoulders hunched in on herself. Only an hour before she had sauntered through the room like she owned it.

Conversation was buzzing around her as the waiters began delivering plates. Laura turned to see that Mattie was eyeing her, her face hard to read. Laura wasn’t sure if she had captured that entire exchange. Mattie smiled at Laura, the expression surprisingly warm.

“So,” Mattie said, her voice even and soft. “How is she doing, really?”

Laura opened her mouth, her instinct to say something flippant or funny about Carmilla. But she noticed the real concern behind Mattie’s eyes, and thought better of it. She gave a one-shouldered shrug.

“I don’t know. I don’t think well?” Laura said, smiling sadly. “I know there are things she hasn’t told me about that...hurt her.” Mattie flinched just slightly, but she didn’t say anything. Laura drew a deep breath. “But...I think she’s doing better? Than she was when I first met her, I mean. I don’t...get the impression she had many friends, before?”

“No,” Mattie said quietly. “Carmilla’s always prided herself on surviving on her own. She lets me in, sometimes. But I think she only allows herself to because she doesn’t see me every day. She can give me parts of herself because she knows she can take them back whenever I leave.” Mattie’s expression was pained, with an undercurrent of what Laura thought might be guilt.

“She doesn’t...seem to have the best relationship with her mother?”

“No,” Mattie said with a humorless laugh. She shrugged. “Mother and I aren’t exactly close, but we understand each other. I was more willing to play her game as a child than Carmilla was, maybe because I was almost an adult when I joined the family. I wish they got along better, I really do, but I don’t think either of their personalities would allow it. That is one thing they have in common - stubbornness.”

Laura nodded slightly, but she was troubled. Mattie talked as if her mother and Carmilla had clashing personalities, like a petulant teen and her overbearing mother. But when Carmilla talked about Lilita Karnstein Laura felt an emptiness, one that was even harder to understand when she thought of her own relationship with her mother. She was going to say something about it, but Mattie was already talking.

“You know, Carmilla has mentioned that tall frat boy she hangs out with before. Their relationship is bewildering to me, but I supposed she finds it novel. But the way she talked about you yesterday, and the way she is with you…” Mattie broke off, looking uncomfortable, as if she wasn’t sure what to say. She shrugged, smiling wryly at Laura. “Well, she seems to care for you very much. And you seems to be helping her. So, thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Laura said quietly, meeting Mattie’s eyes evenly. “I do it for her, because she’s worth it.”

At her words, Mattie swallowed once, and gave a small nod. If she was going to say more, she was interrupted by Carmilla herself, who slipped into the chair beside Laura.

“What did I miss,” she asked, looking between the two of them suspiciously. “You better not have said anything embarrassing about me.”

“Embarrassing?” Laura said, feigning shock. “Why, Carmilla Karnstein has never done anything embarrassing. I mean,” she said, seeming to reconsider, “there was that time you drunkenly admitted you have soft spot for early aughts chick-flicks.”

“Oh really?” Mattie said, her eyes lighting up in delight. Carmilla, in the meantime, looked like she wanted to murder Laura with her eyes. “Do tell. The more details the better.”

*****

Carmilla had been right - the food was excellent. And because the wine kept flowing, Laura found herself getting a bit tipsy. And she was enjoying herself. She took more and more pleasure at the way Carmilla and Mattie exchanged barbs. It was like they were fencing with each other, scoring points based on who could make her snide comments land the best. Laura found herself giggling more than once, which led them both to glare at her, as if she was undermining the seriousness of the whole situation.

It was after the keynote address, just as dessert was being served, that Lilita Karnstein appeared. Laura first noticed she had arrived because Carmilla’s entire demeanor changed. One moment she was confident and snarky and laughing with Mattie, and the next her body was still, as if she was a deer caught in headlights. Laura turned to see Lilita kissing the cheeks of Vordenburg, asking him about his business and whether he was enjoying the event. Then she turned to Mattie, giving her an equally perfunctory kiss on the cheek.

“Matzka, you look lovely,” she said. “And I didn’t tell you earlier, but you handled the Bloomstein account masterfully yesterday - they will be an excellent addition to the Eastern branch’s portfolio.”

“Thank you, mother,” Mattie said, sounding pleased. Then Lilita turned to Carmilla.

“Carmilla,” she said. Her voice was still warm, but there was a subtle tonal shift Laura couldn’t quite put her finger on. 

“Mother,” Carmilla said, giving a small nod.

“Aren’t you going to hug me, dear?” Lilita said, sounding hurt. “I haven’t seen you in months - you act as if we saw each other every day.”

Laura expected some sort of snide retort, but Carmilla just nodded and got out of her chair. She closed the gap between her and Lilita and let her mother wrap her arms around her. It was a short hug, but Carmilla’s body was tense the entire time. Lilita pulled away and searched Carmilla’s face, before stepping away and letting her eyes take in her outfit. She sighed. 

“Well, I should have guessed you would wear the suit. God forbid you show off your feminine side.” Carmilla’s jaw clenched, and once again Laura thought she would say something, but she didn’t. Lilita turned to Laura now. “And who is this?” she asked, lifting an eyebrow and looking at Carmilla expectantly.

“I’m Laura,” Laura said, holding out her hand. Lilita looked at it, as if deciding whether or not it was worth touching. Then she wrapped Laura’s hand in both of hers and gave her a firm handshake. “I’m an...acquaintance of Carmilla’s,” Laura continued, not entirely sure why she said acquaintance and not friend. For some reason, Carmilla looked relieved when she said that.

“How nice,” Lilita said blandly. She turned to Carmilla again, letting Laura’s hand drop. “This one looks like she’s barely out of high school, dear,” she stage-whispered, although Laura could hear her clearly. Her tone was light-hearted, as if they were sharing a joke. “Sometimes I do wish you would consider the impression you make.”

Carmilla’s eyes snapped up to Lilita’s face, and she opened her mouth as if to say something. But then someone called Lilita’s name from the other side of the room, and Lilita turned, beaming at whoever it was. 

“Oh, Declan!” she exclaimed. “Delightful to see you.” She practically flowed away from them, leaving Carmilla standing, staring at her back. Conversations were going on all around them, and no one seemed to have noticed the exchange or regard it as unusual. Laura stepped closer to Carmilla and slipped her hand in hers.

“Hey,” she said quietly. “You want to step outside for some air?”

That seemed to snap Carmilla out of it, and she finally looked at Laura, as if actually seeing her. She gave a small nod, not saying anything, her eyes distant. Laura nodded back, turning towards the exit and gently tugging Carmilla after her. They left the ballroom and the lobby, and Laura led Carmilla out the glass doors and onto the balcony. They stood side by side in silence for a moment, leaning against the railing and looking out on the street two stories below. It was an unusually crisp night for the season, bright and refreshing, but also with an edge of cold. Without realizing she was doing it, Laura edged closer to Carmilla for warmth. When her side touched Carmilla’s, Carmilla looked over her and smiled at her. She slid her arm around Laura’s shoulder and pulled her close to her side, and Laura obliged by nuzzling in closer to Carmilla.

They were silent for a few moments more, listening as the noise of the street mixed with the muffled voices from inside. At some point someone opened the balcony door and propped it open, allowing the music from the interior to drift onto the balcony. There was a six-string quartet playing, and Laura wondered if anyone was dancing.

“Hey,” Laura said finally, breaking the silence. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Carmilla said, her voice raspy and sad. Laura looked up at Carmilla’s profile, proud and beautiful in the moonlight. And all she wanted to do was cup her cheeks in her hands, and kiss her hard enough so Carmilla would know she was important, and wanted. But Laura also knew Carmilla needed her friendship more than anything else right now. Carmilla gave a little shiver, and Laura wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or something else. She looked back at Laura, and her eyes were a little clearer. The soft strains of Claire de Lune were floating through the door.

“Do you want to dance,” Carmilla asked quietly.

“What?” Laura asked, having not expected that at all. Carmilla gave a little laugh.

“It’s not a complicated question, cupcake. Do you want to dance?” Carmilla stepped away from Laura a little and held out her hand. Laura grinned, and let her hand rest in Carmilla’s. Carmilla wrapped her other arm around Laura’s waist, and Laura wrapped hers around Carmilla’s. Then Carmilla began to lead her in something like a waltz, guiding Laura through the steps. For some reason Laura wasn’t surprised to find that Carmilla was skilled at 16th-century ballroom dancing. Laura hadn’t danced like this much in her life, but Carmilla was a good leader. And in some way Laura fit with Carmilla’s body, knowing how to move in time with her. They danced without speaking, their chests warm and close to each other. For a time Laura met Carmilla’s eyes, dark and sparkling in the night. But eventually she just let her head rest just under Carmilla’s chin, listening to the way her heart kept time to the music, and to Laura’s own heart.


	6. Chapter 6

For days Carmilla couldn’t stop thinking about that night. Like she did whenever she was at one of mother’s events, she felt the unsettling sickness of watching Lilita Karnstein cast her spell over everyone. She knew how ably Lilita could inspire others; she saw their rapt expressions as her mother gave her speech, and the way people scrambled over each other to shake her hand and thank her for her work. Even Laura had seemed entranced at first, which had hurt more than Carmilla wanted to admit. But even though Laura couldn’t know why Carmilla felt the way she did towards her mother, she somehow seemed to understand that something was wrong.

Any bad feelings Carmilla had towards the evening were more than countered by her memories of Laura that night. Laura, pulling her out of her stupor in the face of her mother, knowing how to just be silent and _there_ for her. Laura, slipping in so easily with Mattie, who almost never warmed to others. Laura, dancing with her under the moonlight, moving with her like they’d always been dancing together. She’d looked achingly beautiful that evening, and Carmilla didn’t even think she realized it.

Laura had crashed at Carmilla’s place that night, but they’d both been so tired and full of champagne that they hadn’t had a chance to talk. Then when they woke up, Laura had freaked out and sprinted out the door because she had an early morning study session for a journalism class. Carmilla was secretly relieved, because she wasn’t ready to talk yet, and she wasn’t sure how long she could keep deflecting Laura.

Mattie texted Carmilla that morning. Per usual, she was succinct.

**Mattie:** I like Laura. Don’t fuck this one up.

**Carmilla:** I’m trying my hardest.

**Mattie:** I know you are.

**Mattie:** My flight’s in a couple hours, but I’ll see you at your graduation. Try to stay out of trouble. You only have a month left before you’re out of there.

**Carmilla:** Counting down the days.

Carmilla smiled as she turned off the phone, but then sighed. Family drama and Laura non-drama aside, Mattie was right. There was only a month left of her final semester, and suddenly classes were piling on. She had final projects, final papers, final exams everywhere she looked. Her project with Laura was important, but it wasn’t the only thing on her plate. She dove into work starting that day, trying to keep her head above water on her assignments. She barely saw Laura or Kirsch for the next week, and began to feel like a zombie. A part of her knew she was focusing all her attention on these next weeks because she didn’t want to think about what would come after that, but she most definitely did not feel like examining those nebulous fears further.

Their final assignment for Scolp was a culmination of their work that semester, and it was worth a large percentage of their grade.They needed to bring together everything they had done thus far into a full-blown business model covered every aspect of the organization’s marketing, communications, and fundraising plan. She and Laura had been working on it for months, but somehow there always seemed to be more to do. With all of Carmilla’s other classes, she was finding it hard to squeeze this particular class in.

When she and Laura met at the next class, they began planning for when they could meet to finalize and review their final assignment and presentation. Carmilla flipped through her phone calendar, frowning at how many blocks of time were already full.

“Alright,” she finally said with a sigh, “I’ve got a few hours free this Friday afternoon. We’ll have to meet then.”

“I can’t,” Laura said immediately, and Carmilla frowned at her.

“Why?” she asked, blunter than she intended. “I know your schedule - you haven’t stopped talking about it. All your other classes are stacked Monday through Wednesday. And you told me your print journalism project isn’t due until next Tuesday, which in college time is practically a year. Friday is the best time for both of us.”

“It’s not a good time for me,” Laura said, her face puckering up in frustration. “I - I have a lot of prep to do for that journalism class. And I have an exam on Monday, and another one Wednesday.”

“Yeah, and I have an exam tomorrow and one on Friday morning, and two papers due Thursday, and a business proposal due Monday. I know everything seems enormously dire when you’re a freshman, but I am dealing with a really heavy workload right now. Plus if you get this assignment out of the way it will clear everything up for the rest of your work.”

“Fine,” Laura said, her tone of voice more biting than Carmilla had ever heard. She jammed her notebook into her bag and violently zipped it up. “I’ll see you at the Bean on Friday.” She got up and strode to the door, not even looking at Carmilla when she left. Carmilla was left staring at her back, muttering a silent, _What the hell?_ to no one in particular.

****  
Over the next couple of days, Carmilla was too busy to see Laura, or anyone for that matter. She did notice that Laura hardly texted her those two days, but she assumed Laura was as slammed as she was. When Friday rolled around, Carmilla arrived at the Bean an hour before their 3:00 meeting time to get some work done. To her surprise, Laura wasn’t working, even though she almost always worked the Friday afternoon shift. Carmilla settled at her usual table and pulled her books out of her bag, tossing them on the table. She went to the counter to order coffee, and found that LaFontaine was serving her. 

“Hey,” she said, friendly. Over the past month she and LaFontaine had gotten closer, purely by dint of Carmilla spending so much time with Laura, including in group settings. She wouldn’t exactly say they were friends, but they got along well, frequently sympathizing with each other over the high-maintenance needs of Laura and Perry. So Carmilla was expecting at least a genial “Hi” from LaFontaine. Instead, she got a frosty stare and the barest chin nod of acknowledgement. “Oookay,” Carmilla said, not really sure how to proceed. “Um, can I get a medium Americano? For here?”

“That’ll be $2.98,” LaFontaine said, their expression stony. Carmilla frowned, but she paid the money and grabbed her drink when it was ready. She didn’t question LaFontaine, because she did not have the time for whatever insipid frosh drama LaF was participating in.

Laura came in at 3:10, which in itself was unusual - she was usually impeccably (sometimes irritatingly) punctual.

“Hey, cupcake,” Carmilla said, grinning when she looked up from her book to see Laura enter.

“Hey,” Laura responded, her expression flat. She sat down at the table, dropping her bag at her feet.

“Can I get you a hot cocoa or something?” Carmilla asked, feeling for some reason that she had to buy Laura an apology drink, for a wrong she had no idea she’d committed.

“No, I’m not thirsty,” Laura said shortly. “Let’s just get this over with, okay?”

Carmilla drew a breath, wanting to challenge Laura on her attitude. But then she let her breath out and nodded. “Okay,” she said, pulling out her laptop. “Let’s go over what we have so far.”

They started running through their paper, discussing what parts they still needed to add. Then they switched over to the presentation. The whole time Laura seemed distracted, responding in terse, to-the-point sentences that were entirely out of character. Carmilla gritted her teeth throughout, having a sudden, disturbing thought that this might be how she appeared to other people.

Finally they hit a stopping point and Carmilla leaned back, arching her back in a stretch.

“Okay,” she said with a sigh, “I think if we put another hour in we can put a nail on this and finish the rest on our own - maybe meet up one more time to finish.”

“I think we’ve done enough for today,” Laura responded, her lips drawn into a thin line.

“Why are you being like this?” Carmilla said, frowning. “In one more hour we could crank this out and you can go back to worrying about whatever first-year exam is stressing you out. I know you’re an overachiever and everything seems like life-or-death when you’re a freshman, but just wait until you’re a senior. You’ll realize this stuff is just a warmup.”

“Oh, thanks so much for your words of wisdom,” Laura snapped out, her tone so cutting Carmilla almost flinched. “I just love it when you act like a pretentious, sanctimonious ass just because you’re three years older than me. It’s truly delightful.”

“Whoa, what the fuck?” Carmilla asked, completely taken aback. “Where the hell is this coming from? I’m just saying, I have a lot of work on my plate too.”

“It’s not always about you, Carmilla,” Laura said angrily, her face pulling into a bitter expression. “Sometimes you can be so self-centered.”

“I’m self-centered?” Carmilla scoffed. “I’m not the one who can’t go for five minutes without talking about whatever inane thought pops into her mind.”

“You know what?” Laura said, grabbing her notebook and shoving it in her bag. She stood up slinging the bag around her shoulder, and looked Carmilla directly in the face. “Fuck you.”

And then she turned and left, slamming the door of the Bean behind her. Carmilla was left staring at the space where she had been, feeling like she’d had the wind knocked out of her. She had never seen Laura like that - that was a level of anger she didn’t even know Laura was capable of. She looked up, feeling dazed and disoriented, to see LaFontaine glaring at her from the counter. Carmilla drew a deep, steadying breath, trying to gather her bearings. Then she stood up and made her way to the counter, where LaF had gone back to studiously ignoring her, pretending to restock the biscotti jar.

“Hey, can we talk?” Carmilla said. LaFontaine continued to ignore her, switching over to refilling the Splenda packets in one of the containers. Carmilla sighed. “Look, I know I fucked up. Obviously something is going on that I don’t know about, and instead of trying to figure that out, I stepped right in it and screwed it all up. And I know you’re mad at me because you know what it is. But I hope you know me well enough by now to know that I would never intentionally hurt Laura. Can you just tell me what’s going on?”

LaFontaine stood with their back to Carmilla, unmoving, as if deciding whether to respond. Then they sighed and turned to face Carmilla.

“Yeah, you’re right, you did fuck up.” LaFontaine must have seen the hurt expression on Carmilla’s face, because their expression softened. “But I get that you didn’t know that you were screwing up, and you were just being your usual dick-self. So, here’s the deal.” LaFontaine drew a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. “Today is the anniversary of the day Laura’s mom died. She doesn’t talk about it much, but in our first semester she told me that she usually just kind of disappears on the anniversary every year. And then she told me a week ago that she wouldn’t be at work today because today was the day. So you can imagine how I felt seeing that you’d strong-armed her into have a class meeting today.”

“Shit,” Carmilla said, unable to come up with anything more coherent. The moment LaFontaine had mentioned Laura’s mom’s death, Carmilla had felt like she’d been punched in the gut. She felt a rush of guilt, which was immediately replaced with an overwhelming sense of sadness for Laura. And then a little bit of insecurity that Laura hadn’t felt she could share that information with Carmilla. Carmilla let out a breath, giving a little nod. “I’m sorry. Really, really sorry.” She looked up at LaFontaine, trying to convey her sincerity. LaF studied her face for a moment, and then nodded.

“I know. But it doesn’t change the fact that Laura’s hurting right now.”

“Do you know where she went?” Carmilla asked, her tone a little desperate. “I mean, I know she might not want to see me, but...I don’t know. I want to be there if she does.”

LaFontaine shrugged. “I don’t know. I think that’s something you’ll have to let her decide - whether she wants you around right now.”

Carmilla nodded. “Okay. Thanks.” Then she went back to her table and pulled out her phone.

**Carmilla:** Hi Laura. LaF told me about your mom. I am so, incredibly sorry. I was a complete asshole and I wish I could take it all back. I understand if you don’t want to see me, but I’m also here for you if you need me. 

She pressed send and held her breath, waiting for a response. She waited for fifteen minutes, and still nothing. She was gathering up her books and prepared to leave, convinced she’d ruined everything, when her phone dinged.

**Laura:** Can you meet me at the McAllen Park in thirty minutes?

**Carmilla:** Yes! I’ll be there!

Since Carmilla had a half hour, she swung by a convenience store to pick up  some items on her way to McAllen Park. When she arrived, the sun was still up, but just barely. Carmilla had only been to McAllen Park once. It was a sprawling mecca in the middle of the city, known for its secluded areas popular to nature-lovers and regular lovers alike. When Carmilla arrived, she texted Laura.

**Carmilla:** Hey poptart. I’m here - just let me know where you want me to meet you.

**Laura:** When you see the big avant-garde sculpture (looks kind of like a praying mantis) turn left and there’s a path in the woods. Follow that for a bit.

**Carmilla:** Promise you’re not going to Jason Voorhees me?

**Laura:** No promises yet.

Carmilla smiled, feeling somewhat comforted that Laura was still making jokes. She followed Laura’s instructions, walking down the small but well-worn path as it curved around thick brush and towering trees. She finally rounded a bend into an elevated clearing, one that provided a clear view of tree-studded vista below. Her eyes immediately caught sight of Laura, who was sitting with her back against a moss-covered log. Her brown hair fell softly at her shoulders, which were curved in on themselves as if Laura was trying to block out the world.

“Hey,” Carmilla said quietly, and Laura started a little. She turned to look at Carmilla, and gave a small smile.

“Hi.”

“Is it okay if I sit?” Carmilla asked hesitantly, suddenly feeling like she was walking on glass.

“Yeah,” Laura said, looking down at the spot next to her. Carmilla took the final steps towards Laura and lowered herself down next to her, carefully making sure there was at least a couple of inches between them. They were a silent for a moment, just looking into the panorama before them. The faint light of the fading sun were casting burnished red and blue tendrils across the sky.

“I, um, I brought snacks,” Carmilla finally said, holding up the grocery bag she’d gotten from CVS. “I don’t know if that was dumb or inappropriate or what, but I got your favorites - gummy bears and oreos and sour-patch kids.”

Laura looked over at her, and smiled. It was faint, and a little sad, but it was real. “Thank you,” she said sincerely, taking the bag from Carmilla. “That was nice of you.”

Carmilla nodded. “I - I don’t really know what to say. I’m not really used to apologizing, if you can believe it.” Laura let out a little laugh, rolling her eyes, and Carmilla smiled. “But I was an asshole. Which is par for the course for me, but I mean I was really an asshole. I should have listened to what you were trying to tell me. I was selfish, and self-centered. And I’m sorry. Because...I just want to be there for you, you know?”

“I know,” Laura said quietly, still looking ahead at the sun as it continued setting. Carmilla studied her profile - one she had already memorized weeks ago. Carmilla was so used to seeing Laura’s face full of brightness and anticipation for what life would offer next - it was hard to see this clear, deep sadness in every line of her face. It was in that moment, looking at Laura and wanting nothing more than to make things right with her, that Carmilla realized she might actually be in love with her. Rather than coming as a shock, the realization settled gently upon Carmilla, as if it was something that she had always known but was just now accepting. But she also didn’t have time to examine her feelings, because this moment was about Laura and how she was feeling. Luckily Carmilla was an expert at compartmentalizing, and she mentally set aside her recent revelation to examine (or not) later.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Carmilla said, her voice soft. “Or you can say whatever you want. But I’m here for you. Always.”

“I know that too,” Laura said, and finally she turned to look at Carmilla. Her eyes were bright, and Carmilla could see that there were tears held back in the corner of her eyes. She ached to wipe them away and pull Laura to her, but she held her body still, letting Laura take the lead. “I didn’t mean to snap at you the way I did. You couldn’t know what this day meant. So I’m sorry too.”

“God, sweetheart, you don’t have to apologize!” Carmilla exclaimed. Instinctively, she slipped her arm around Laura’s shoulder and pulled her to her. Laura responded by curling her body into Carmilla’s, tucking her head just under Carmilla’s chin. “I just - you’re not alone, okay?”

Carmilla felt Laura nod, and they sat in silence for another few moments, watching as the sun slowly slipped down the sky.

Laura broke the silence. “She died when I was nine. She was in a car accident with my dad, but my dad made it out with only a broken arm. But he…” she paused, and cleared her throat. When she said the next words, her voice broke, and Carmilla’s heart nearly did. “He basically watched her die. So you can understand why he became so protective of me, afterwards.”

Laura lapsed into silence again, and Carmilla pulled her to her tighter, reaching her other hand over to slip her fingers through Laura’s. A moment later, Laura spoke again.

“I remember some things about her so clearly. And other times...I feel like I’m just making up memories. But I miss her. Every day, but days like today the most.”

“What was she like?” Carmilla asked softly. She felt Laura sigh, and then heard the smile in her voice.

“She was ridiculous. Like, goofy and ridiculous.” She laughed softly. “She used to do these voices - these impressions. She wasn’t very good at them, but I didn’t care when I was a kid. I thought they were hilarious. Cartoon characters, celebrities - it didn’t matter. She was silly, all the time. I remember that.”

“I think I see how that might have rubbed off on you,” Carmilla said, wry but gentle. Laura laughed and looked up at Carmilla, her eyes shining. Then she tucked her head back under Carmilla’s chin.

“She also made chocolate chip pancakes on weekends, and double-chocolate-chip on birthdays. Which is maybe also where I got my sweet-tooth.”

Carmilla listened, for how long she didn’t even know, as Laura told stories of her mother. She told stories of a woman Laura remembered in fits and starts, but remembered so vividly in parts. She painted a picture of a woman who was kind, and fun, and stern when she needed to be; who loved Laura’s father and Laura without reservation. The kind of mother Carmilla couldn’t even imagine. She felt some pain when she thought of her own mother - it held up a mirror to some things she had never examined about their relationships. But this night was about Laura, so she filed those thoughts away for later.

Finally, Laura seemed to exhaust her desire to talk. Carmilla hugged her to her tight, placing a kiss on the top of Laura’s head.

“Thank you for telling me about her,” Carmilla said, her voice husky with emotion. “I wish I could have met her.”

“I wish she could have met you,” Laura said, a smile in her voice. “She would have liked you.”

Carmilla wasn’t so sure, but just hearing that Laura thought so made her feel good. Laura gave a little shiver, and Carmilla gave her another squeeze. By now, the sun had been down for an hour, and the trees were only dark outlines lit by the distant lights of the city. Carmilla could hear the rhythmic hum of crickets in the woods around her, and the occasional snap of a twig as some animal passed quietly by in the distance.

“Are you getting cold?”

“Yeah, a little,” Laura admitted. “Maybe it’s time for us to head home.”

They disentangled themselves from each other, both rising to their feet. Before they made their moves to leave, Carmilla pulled Laura into a hug, trying to convey all of her feelings through her body.

“She would be so proud of you,” Carmilla whispered, meaning it. “She would be so proud to have a daughter like you.”

It took a moment for Carmilla to feel Laura’s body shaking against her, and she realized she was crying. Carmilla held her tighter, feeling her heart break. She wanted to take all of this pain away, but she knew from experience that she couldn’t - she just had to hold on and be there the best she could.

Finally Laura stopped crying as much, and Carmilla pulled away, just a bit. She reached up and cupped Laura’s cheeks in her hands, looking into her soft brown eyes, watery and red from crying. She used her thumbs to brush away the tears from Laura’s face, and smiled at her.

“You are amazing, Laura Hollis. And I wish I could take all of this away, and I wish your mother was here. But I can tell she loved you so much.”

Laura nodded once, before giving a shaky sob and flinging herself into Carmilla’s arms again. They stood there for a few minutes more, before Laura’s breathing became even again. Laura pulled away from Carmilla, offering her a watery smile. 

“Okay, let’s go for real this time,” she said, giving a hiccuping laugh. Carmilla nodded and started heading towards the path. A moment later, she felt Laura’s hand slip into hers, and they walked the rest of the way with their hands entangled in each others.

Carmilla drove Laura to her dorm, telling Laura that she could pick her car up in the morning from the park. When they arrived, Carmilla wasn’t entirely sure what to do. It felt strange to just leave Laura, after such an emotional evening. Before they left the car, Laura hesitated, biting her lip between her teeth.

“This might be too much to ask, and you really don’t have to. But...would you want to spend the night? I mean,” she continued in a rush, “just as a friend? I just...I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

“Of course, cupcake,” Carmilla said softly, smiling at Laura reassuringly. Laura’s face brightened, and she nodded once.

Carmilla followed Laura up the stairs to the third floor where her dorm room was. Carmilla had been by a couple times to pick Laura up for lunch dates, but hadn’t spent much time there. To Carmilla’s relief, her roommate Betty was out for the night - apparently she was a bit of a party-girl.

They got ready for bed without saying much, Laura laughing at the way Carmilla looked in her polka-dot boxers, and laughing harder when Carmilla scowled at her. Laura gave Carmilla her spare toothbrush, and clearly took too much pleasure in seeing Carmilla’s expression when she handed her a Doctor Who t-shirt to sleep in.

Laura had the classic twin-bed all freshmen had, so Carmilla was having trouble figuring out how they were going to manage it, and was considering sleeping on the floor. But then Laura crawled into bed and turned her back to Carmilla.

“Carm, do you think you could just...hold me tonight? Just for tonight, I promise.”

Carmilla nodded, but realizing Laura couldn’t see her, she just said, “Of course, cupcake.”

She slipped into bed next to Laura, and Laura shifted so her body fit into the curve of Carmilla’s. Carmilla slipped her arm around Laura’s waist, pulling her in tighter, burying her face in Laura’s hair and breathing in the smell of her shampoo.

“Thank you, Carmilla,” Laura said quietly, letting out a contented sigh.

“Any time, Laura,” Carmilla said in return. 

In minutes, they were asleep, chests rising and falling in time with each other’s.


End file.
